Writer: Anika Kiefer, Junior Project Manager in Eschborn within the develoPPP.de-programme
Coffee growers in Thailand’s Chumporn province often come to a class with their calculators to find out their investment cost and income they receive out of their sweat.
30 of them learn about financial management among other entrepreneurial knowledge and skills and good practices for sustainable Robusta coffee plantation supported by a public-private partnership project called Coffee+.
“I have started making expenses and income planning, said one of the participating farmers. “The training was really helpful and I gained lots of knowledge.”
In the middle of their village, the coffee farmers attended a four-day Farmer Business School (FBS) developed by Agriculture and Food Cluster under the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH and jointly organized by Nestle SA.
In Southern Thailand alone, Coffee+ has reached up to 2,000 Robusta coffee growers.
The local farmers also wish they could replant thousands of coffee trees more as the old ones, aged 15 while some are older, produce a very low yield.
The coffee farmers commit to pick up the best practices from the FBS to make sustainable income and better quality of coffee beans and their living in the long run.
