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2x
Yield of stumped trees expected after 3 years
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80%
Farmers stumping at scale
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> 90%
Farmers making compost
“Before the program, I used to just harvest coffee and feared activities like stumping or pruning because, at first, you lose your yield. The trainings helped me understand the importance of stumping and gave me the confidence to do it on my farm.”
The Challenge
Across smallholder coffee communities, yields fall persistently short of what the land can produce. Aging trees, depleted soils, and insufficient on-farm investment limit yields, with each constraint making the others harder to address. Without systematic farming practices and sufficient income to reinvest in farm management, farmers struggle to realize the productive potential of their land.
Soils lose nutrients with every harvest, and trees produce less as they age. Soil health can be rebuilt with compost or fertilizer, but without the right knowledge, few farmers see it as an investment worth making. Stumping—cutting trees back to their base—rejuvenates aging trees, but yields take at least three harvests to recover and exceed previous levels. Limited access to finance and information slows adoption of these practices, keeping yields low and resilience out of reach.
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Our Approach
We work with farmers in East Africa to encourage them to treat their farm more like a real business, systematically investing time and resources in order to raise yields and incomes. We use Enveritas data to identify communities most in need, e.g. with below-average yields and aging trees.
We are piloting phased, results-based incentives with farmer support and coaching, focusing on key drivers of yields like soil nutrition and tree rejuvenation. Farmers target rejuvenation of a fifth of their farm at a time, cycling through blocks year after year. Composting, mulching, and cover cropping restore soil health, supplemented by inorganic fertilizers in Uganda. Incentives are used as a tool to unlock behavior change while we work towards accompanying farmers in the transition to long-term productivity.
Adoption of all practices is assessed on farms, and yield is tracked. We iterate to improve on adoption and outcomes.
In Ethiopia
Ethiopia is the birthplace of Arabica coffee, yet yields among smallholders commonly fall below 300 kg of green coffee per hectare, well below production in comparable producing countries. Aging trees are a primary driver, with less than 5% of farmers in typical target regions rejuvenating at any meaningful scale, resulting in farms well past their productive peak. Systematic nutrition practices are equally rare: fewer than a quarter of farmers in Sidama produce compost, and just 1% in Jimma.
So far, 80% of farmers in our pilot design stumped at scale in response to incentives. Over 90% produced enough compost to apply to all of their recently stumped trees
In Uganda
More than half of Uganda’s estimated 2M coffee producing smallholders live in poverty, with yields typically around 250 kg per hectare for Arabica and 400 kg for Robusta. Less than 3% of farmers currently stump at scale. Similar to Ethiopia, support with rejuvenation and nutrition can double yields, though regional nuances require thoughtful adaptations. Uganda's biannual harvests mean coffee trees almost always carry cherries or flowers, raising the psychological barrier to rejuvenation. Inorganic fertilizer is only used by 15% of farmers, and amounts applied are well below what is required for a sustainable production for the household. Our activities in Uganda work towards changing this status quo.
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