This coffee from Taferi Kela, Sidamo, Ethiopia comes to us through our friends at Bette Buna. Bette Buna literally translates to ‘House of Coffee’ and this company has been deeply rooted in the village ever since Grandfather Syoum and Grandmother Emame asked Dawit and Hester to take over their farm, but more importantly, their responsibility for building the community of Taferi Kela. Even though this village shares a mountain range with better-known Sidamina producers, it has been overlooked so far, and no other company or industry of any type works in this area.
Building Opportunities
Coffee production in Ethiopia accounts for about a third of the country's GDP but more than 90 percent of people working in coffee don’t make a livable income. Bette Buna has set out to change that in their community. They teach their community farmers to improve their soil, grow back agro-forestry systems, and teach the importance of picking ripe cherries. Ripe cherries weigh more and produce better coffee, so the farmers get paid more by weight, and also receive a quality premium. Perhaps most importantly, they distribute more than 350,000 healthy seedlings every year from their in-house nursery.
These seedlings are climate-change adapted varietals, and on average the farmers who plant them make minimum $2 per year per seedling once the trees are grown. This means an economic impact in the area of more than $650,000 a year in a region where the average household income is less than $50 per month for an average family size of 9 people.
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