Zimbabwe coffee farmers to pilot Nespresso’s Afric...

Zimbabwe coffee farmers to pilot Nespresso’s Africa US$1.4m regenerative farming programme

Zimbabwe is joining Uganda in piloting regenerative coffee production under the US$4.1 million Nespresso Sustainability Innovation Fund.

In partnership with the International Finance Corporation, Nepresso in the which is aiming to promote more sustainable, resilient, and inclusive livelihoods for coffee-growing communities in Africa while preserving some of the world’s rarest coffee varieties.

Nespresso chief executive officer Guillaume Le Cunff said together with IFC, they can create transformative community-level projects within our Reviving Origins programme. “We are building on our work with IFC in improving the livelihoods of smallholders in Africa through the transition to regenerative farming practices, with a specific focus on gender equality and inclusion.

The programme, announced at the recent annual meeting of the Nespresso Sustainability advisory board, will start working with an initial cohort of around 2 000 farmers drawn from Uganda and Zimbabwe, where Nespresso has its Reviving Origins programme. It is expected to expand to other countries in Africa.

Zimbabwe’s coffee-growing region lies in Manicaland Province, stretching from Honde Valley to Vumba and Chipinge where the wetter and cooler environments produce high quality coffee.

The IFC/Nepresso partnership will help farmers transition to regenerative agriculture, which is aimed at reducing carbon emissions, promoting nature-based solutions, thereby improving the livelihoods of smallholder farmers.

Both IFC and Nespresso are committed to gender diversity and inclusion, and the programme will also seek to address gender gaps in coffee production by helping women coffee growers better access the resources and knowledge they need to thrive.

Nespresso’s sustainability efforts under its Reviving Origins program seek to help coffee-growing regions affected by a wide range of adversities such as conflict, protracted economic hardship, and environmental disasters. Its Sustainability Innovation Fund works to help restart local economies, protect endangered coffee varieties, and enable its growers to meet sustainability requirements laid out under Nespresso’s AAA Sustainable Quality Programme.

Managing Director of IFC Makhtar Diop: '”Supporting and strengthening coffee-growing communities is essential, especially given the stresses placed on growers by climate change. We are convinced that blended investments and partnerships between the private sector and development institutions are critical to accelerate and scale the transition to regenerative, low carbon coffee cultivation that delivers better livelihoods for farmers.'”

In 2016, IFC and the World Bank’s BioCarbon Fund Initiative for Sustainable Forest Landscapes provided US$6 million in financing to the Nespresso Sustainability Innovation Fund, supporting the company’s efforts to improve the climate resilience and productivity of smallholder coffee growers in Ethiopia and Kenya.

The fund was also seeking to help women farmers play a more central role in sustainable coffee production.