gakenke: burundi

Gakenke Washing Station currently has 2,685 registered farmer members, spread over 22 hills in the Gatara commune, within the Kayanza province. they’re organised into groups of 30, headed by a producer leader to facilitate communication with the washing station. each farmer typically has an average of 250 trees, normally in their backyards. during harvest, coffee is selectively hand-picked, and harvesting is done almost entirely by the family.

in Burundi, farmers can typically reach washing stations within a 3km radius as travelling greater distances can be time consuming and expensive for smallholder farmers. when the washing station is too far away, farmers tend to sell to a middleman, often at a disadvantage. to prevent this, Gakenke and other Greenco stations offer multiple collection points. farmers can bring their cherries either directly to a washing station or to one of the 10-15 collection sites throughout the growing areas. as receiving cherry immediately after harvest is crucial to quality, these centres allow farmers even up to 9kms away to work with them without compromising the quality of the coffee.

farmers are paid the same for their quality cherry regardless of where they bring their cherries. this way, farmers are not disadvantaged due to location & Greenco covers the cost of transport to washing stations. the QA process begins as soon as farmers deliver their cherries. all cherries are floated in small buckets as a first step to check quality. after floating, the higher quality cherry is sorted again by hand to remove all damaged, underripe & overripe cherries.

after sorting, beans are transported directly to drying tables & laid out in a single layer where they’ll dry slowly for 3-4 weeks. pickers go over the drying beans for any damaged or defective beans that may’ve been missed previously. the washing station is very strict about allowing only the highest quality cherry to complete the drying process.

Gakenke also participates in a number of farmer outreach & support projects, ranging from their ‘goat & pig project’, providing coffee farming families with livestock & education for food and fertilizer; the Farmer Hub, a project that includes grocery stores at their stations, offering their partners subsidised groceries; to investing in neighbouring schools & providing health insurance to their members.

We sourced this stunning Burundi via Sucafina Specialty Coffee through their in-country partner Greenco. Greenco operates 13 central washing stations (CWS), all located in Kayanza in the north of Burundi. since starting in 2015, they’ve been processing some really excellent coffee & have dominated all Cup of Excellence competitions in Burundi ever since.

Greenco provide support to farmers all along the production chain. producers receive assistance from the Greenco CWS managers, who are all agronomic engineers. we also love that they work alongside communities to increase the livelihoods of the farmers & general equality in coffee producing areas. next to improving quality & productivity, Greenco strives to improve socio-economic and environmental conditions around the washing stations. all of their washing stations have UTZ and 4C certification. one of their focus points is building an efficient supply chain, buying 93% of their cherries directly from farmers through collection centers & improving farm-gate prices to the producers.

in addition to providing training on farming practices, Greenco organises trainings for farmers & their families around different social aspects like gender equality, financial planning, family planning & more. They also address socio-economic challenges like youth unemployment (the national youth unemployment rate is almost 50%). at Greenco, young graduates receive a decent salary & benefits (house, motorbike, healthcare) as well as real career prospects.

environmental sustainability is high on their priority list too. all washing stations have water treatment facilities, solar panels & batteries. the stations have ponds to purify the wastewater from processing before flowing back into the river network. solar panels also provide energy for computers, lighting & smartphones.

Greenco’s overall impact through the 13 central washing stations extends to over 15,210 coffee producing households.