Coffee has been the backbone of the agriculture-based economy of Tanzania for the last 100 years providing employment for an estimated 2 million people directly or indirectly, according to the Tanzania Coffee Research Institute (TaCRI).

However, low productivity is making it difficult for farmers to retain their livelihoods. Against this background, Kolcafé, a 2009 SEED Winner, has in only 4 years tripled yields and quadrupled incomes for 270 farming families in the village of Nyamuhunga in North-Western Tanzania. What led to that success?

The idea behind Kolcafé

Kolcafé was founded as a partnership between the Kolping Society of Tanzania (KST), CUSO/VSO-Tanzania, and the Tanzania Coffee Research Institute (TaCRI) with the aim to empower coffee farmers and increase income from their coffee production. The "keystone" strategy to realise this ambition, is based on using manure-based compost to improve yields. In addition, proper pruning and selective harvesting and improved post-harvest handling all have helped increase yield and quality. Each year large volumes (around 300 tonnes) of manure are bought and used to make compost which is then applied to the coffee plants to achieve the high yield increases. Farmers are paying a set fee per kg which is saved in the village bank account and used to buy the season's manure volumes for all smallholders involved. The new techniques make quite a difference, on the right, a typical "unloved" coffee bush with low soil quality and no pruning which results in very low yield. On the left, proud smallholders with a coffee bush that has been properly pruned and nourished with manure-based compost - yield improved by 300 - 500%.

Additionally, the value of the harvest is increased through improved harvest and post-harvest handling practices, including hulling the dried product at a hulling station established by Kolcafé. All of this happens locally in the village. The resulting coffee beans attract a price premium for their high quality and when bulked and properly prepared, can be sold directly to international buyers for far better prices than offered by local middlemen. The USD200,000 start-up costs have been provided by the KST as a zero interest loan to farmers. The KST provides agronomic staff to coordinate operations and strategic business planning and, with assistance from a VSO volunteer business consultant, offers long-term mentoring to assist the farmers in their transition from poor smallholders to profitable business owners. The loan is, essentially, a 10-year mortgage that farmers will repay beginning in 2016. Size of the payments will be dependent on the price their coffee attracts each year.

So what are the Key Succes Factors in this case?

8 Key Success Factors

1. Conduct a high-quality baseline study: A baseline study takes stock of the situation before a new enterprise gets set-up. In the case of Kolcafé, this primarily involved measuring the productivity of coffee plants in existing shambas (smallholder farms) and derived household income. A baseline study does take time and resources, but it is an absolute necessity if one is to understand the degree of success of the new enterprise over time.

2. Create local ownership and provide training: Experience has shown that when new practices and technology are implemented at the grassroots without proper consultation with the local communities, those ventures almost always fail in the long term, primarily due to the absence of a sense of ownership by the beneficiaries. For the introduction of new practices to be successful and sustainable in the long term, it is therefore imperative that beneficiaries are actively engaged at the very beginning, from the basic design stage, so as to ensure the enterprise becomes "theirs" and is locally driven. Beneficiaries must also receive adequate group dynamics, management and technical skills training to be able to maintain and grow the enterprise with mentoring help from key partners.

3. Choose the proper partners: Partnerships, and the sound management of same, are absolutely critical because a single organisation seldom has all the expertise required for success. In the case of Kolcafé the critical partners were the KST which had worked with farmers for years and had their trust, CUSO/VSO who supplied an expert business consultant and the Tanzania Coffee Research Authority (TaCRI) - which had both local research and on the ground experience to validate the proposal being presented to the farmers and the agronomic staff at the KST.

4. Identify a trusted local partner: The development business is so pervasive in East Africa that most smallholders have been subjected to many "sales pitches"; many of which are ill-conceived and generate more benefits for the entity issuing the proposal rather than for the supposed beneficiaries. This historical context means that it is critical to identify a local partner that has genuine social benefits as a main focus from the outset and that farmers trust - the KST was/is that partner.

5. Provide Long-Term Mentoring: Many projects fail because the project team simply disappears after the implementation phase and there is little follow-up other than intermittent Monitoring and Evaluation exercises. For an idea to actually turn into a sustainable enterprise owned and driven by smallholders, long-term mentoring on arising questions and problems is essential.

6. Use Demo Plots: "It is better to see something once than hear it 100 times" - "Seeing is believing" was absolutely true for the farmers working with Kolcafé. We used many demonstration plots to showcase the potential of the new agronomic practices. Today, after 4 full years of operation and with average yield across the village having tripled, all participants are strong supporters of the new practices. As a result farmers from adjacent villages are vying to be part of the second implementation site.

7. Develop group dynamics: For initiatives such as Kolcafé to succeed, a large number of farmers have to coordinate their efforts; for instance with managing the 300 tonnes of manure purchased each year or with bulking their crops and preparing them for sale in distant markets. Building the relationships and setting up the mechanisms for cooperation takes time.

8. Enhance technical and business management skills: Teaching 270 farmers how to make high-quality manure-based compost, properly apply the product to coffee bushes and properly prune those bushes, as well as keeping track of each farmer's share of the manure purchase and managing debt repayments of each farmer can be challenging. Strong, honest village leadership and dedicated support staff (in this case the KST) with strong management skills are critical success factors.

Improving the lives of children and grandchildren

Today, in the 5th project year, Kolcafé smallholders have tripled yields and almost quadrupled income from their major cash crop, coffee. They are investing some of their profit to purchase 300 tonnes of manure annually to sustain and further improve yields. In 2015, with guidance from the KST and CUSO/VSO, they will market a portion of their harvest directly to the export market for the first time - receiving significantly better prices than available from other buyers. In 2016 the farmers will begin repaying the zero interest project loan. These funds will be used for a phased implementation of Kolcafé in a second village

In 2016, once again with guidance from the KST and CUSO/VSO, Kolcafé will obtain formal organic certification, receiving an additional price premium of 7%. In 2015/16 we will create the first annual business report and will approach donors for funding to expand this hugely successful project to other villages. Longer-term (4 to 5 years) we hope to be selling a proprietary Kolping brand of coffee in Europe.

You know you've been successful when: during a recent visit by the CUSO/VSO advisor, the farmers' association executive thanked the advisors (both CUSO/VSO and KST) for bringing them a project which would improve the lives of their children and grandchildren. Quite a change in perspective for smallholders who used to be focused only on extreme near-term survival issues!