Virunga National Park Coffees | Building Prosperity through Coffee

Congo and coffee — a long and turbulent history.

After discovering the Coffea Canephora — or Robusta — at the end of the 19th century in Congo, the Belgian colonists started to cultivate coffee massively in big estates. Following the country’s independence in 1960, big estates were abandoned, and the coffee industry started a long roller-coaster ride with alternatively strong declines and booms following governmental support. Coffee production decreased from around 120,000 tonnes in 1989, to 40,000 tonnes in 2003.

Congo’s robusta coffee grows principally in the vast lowland forest areas of the Congo Basin, while traditional arabica bourbon varieties are grown in the eastern highlands bordering Lake Tanganyika, Lake Kivu and Lake Edward. For many years this coffee was semi-abandoned as infrastructure and export routes broke down, and farmers were forced to smuggle their coffee east across the border principally into Uganda and Rwanda. Congo arabica coffee, which had a strong reputation in the 1950s and 1960s, all but disappeared from the market. Then from 2008 co-operatives in the province of South Kivu were formed and began to process their coffees in washing stations, and the Congo specialty coffee sector had a resurgence. Today there is an increasing range of fine fully washed coffees available to roasters from the provinces of North Kivu, South Kivu, and Ituri.

The Kivu Area & Virunga National Park

Located at the border to Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi, the Kivu area is home to coffees with stunning cup profiles. While the area is subject to ongoing conflicts, a cooperation between coffee farmers, Farm Africa and the Virunga National Park is encouraging peace through the growing of specialty coffee.

Established in 1925, the Virunga National Park is the oldest national park in Africa and one of the last refuges of the mountain gorilla, and is also home to highly endangered lowland gorillas as well as savanna elephants, chimpanzees, lions, leopards and antelopes. It has the largest diversity of bird life in the world. Due to the situation in eastern DR Congo, the park faces many existential challenges.

For Virunga National Park the conservation of its extraordinary wildlife, and the promotion of the social and economic well-being of the people of North Kivu who live around the park, go hand in hand. Through the Virunga Alliance, which is supported by the provincial authorities, civil society and the private sector, the National Park is investing in a number of initiatives to promote economic regeneration, most notably a major hydro-electric generation and distribution venture. This is already bringing employment opportunities as well as access to electricity for thousands of households.

The park is also embarking on a major agriculture program, with the vision of boosting the livelihoods of smallholder farmers who live around the park by investing in the production and marketing of their food crops and their cash crops, including coffee. In this way the pressures on farmers to encroach on the park to extract wood for charcoal will be reduced, and farmers will see positive benefits from the park’s presence.

Coffee project with Farm Africa

The borders of the Virunga National Park, including the slopes of the Rwenzori Mountains and the uplands to the north-west of Lake Edward, contain some of the finest Arabica coffee growing land in the world. The climate is temperate with plentiful rainfall and sunshine, volcanic soils, as well as altitudes rising to over 2,000 metres. Smallholder farmers here have long grown heirloom bourbon varieties, but until very recently post-harvest processing was very basic and the only buyers were informal traders, mainly coming from neighboring Uganda.

The aim of the Virunga National Park coffee program is to enable farmers to realize the full potential of their coffees. Overall, the program will boost the livelihoods of more than 7,000 coffee farming families living on the border of the national park. The farmers are already organized at village level, around small-scale coffee washing stations, and are affiliated to two vibrant young cooperatives, Kawa Kanzururu and Coopade, based close to Beni and Butembo respectively, for milling and export.

The project will strengthen their business at each level, from farm management to production and business systems, while building a strong profile and presence in international markets.

The project approach is based on implementing a holistic and sustainable farming model, including crop diversification, establishing a balance between food security and cash generation, as well as training in good agricultural practices and the establishment of nurseries for coffee as well as other trees. There is also a strong emphasis on increasing the quantity and quality of the fully washed Arabica produced by the cooperatives. This will be achieved through upgrading processing and storage capacity, installing cupping labs, and through training in quality management, evaluation and control at each level from farmer to export. The business management capacities of the cooperatives will be strengthened, including the governance issues entailed in operating a complex business, and the cooperatives’ ability to secure working capital. The cooperatives will be supported to understand and operate successfully in international markets, with the aim of establishing linkages with importers, roasters, brands and retailers through long-term business partnerships.

Kawa Kanzururu Cooperative

The farming community in North Kivu has become accustomed to adversity. Armed incursion, corruption and disease are part of everyday life, but in coffee they see hope. Coffee is one of the only cash crops these producers grow. It puts money on the table, brings stability to the community and enables farmers to plan.

The Kawa Kanzururu Cooperative is an exciting new Coop with a network of 24 micro-mills along the western rim of the Rwenzori Mountain Range. The benefit of working through a Coop is of huge importance to smallholders since North Kivu is landlocked. Plugging Congolese coffee into the global supply chain means transporting it to the Port of Mombasa in Kenya to reach the sea. Thus, working collectively is essential. The Kawa Kanzururu Coop is also focused on expanded production and quality.

The farming community borders the Virunga National Park which occupies the Semliki River Valley in the 140 km stretch between lakes Edward and Albert in the westernmost arm of the Great Rift Valley. Cocoa and palm oil are also grown in the lower zones, and new crops such as chia seed are also starting to take root. The conditions here are ideal for growing coffee: deep, fertile, volcanic soil, high altitude and adequate rainfall.

ORGANIC NORTH KIVU GORILLA BLEND

• Producer: Kawa Kanzururu Coop + Smallholders
• Sensory Notes: Cane Sugar, Green Tea, Lemon & Lime, Floral
• Cup Score: 86.5

ORGANIC KIVU VIRUNGA NATIONAL PARK BLEND

• Producer: Kawa Kanzururu Coop + Smallholders
• Sensory Notes: Dark Chocolate, Caramel, Tropical Fruit, Black Tea, Lemon & Lime
• Cup Score: 87

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Copyright Genuine Origin — Original content provided by Volcafe Select. All photos by Carl de Keyzer / Magnum Photos for the Virunga Foundation