Long Miles Coffee’s approach to making markets to work for farmers

Session: Coffee farmers in Burundi have been dogged in recent years by low prices and poor input availability. Can best practices in coffee farming realistically lead to profitable farms, given the small land size and capital constraints of small-scale coffee farmers? We will look at empirical data on best practices, and data on farm profits and costs gathered from farmers who sell coffee cherry to Long Miles Coffee.

Matthew Gates was born in Utah in 1982 and grew up in New Hampshire, western Kenya, Indiana and Pennsylvania. In 2005, he earned a Bachelor's degree in Philosophy and History of Mathematics at St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland. In 2006, he began a mission as an agroforestry extension officer with the United States Peace Corps in Yongo, a small village in Senegal where he stayed for three successive years, participating in the planting of fruit trees. and the revitalization of farmers' trees, the village sanitation project. In 2012, he returned to Senegal to research RNA PRIMAIRE in order to obtain an International Master in Agriculture and Rural Development from Cornell University. He currently lives in Rwanda where he is leading a conservation work program for the Mennonite Central Committee in cooperation with five Rwandan partner organizations of the MCC. He has been a consultant to AC projects with MCC partners in Burundi and Burkina Faso. Athanas Nikumana also works with Long Miles Coffee.