Misozi Union - Rwanda

Misozi is the Kinyarwanda word for "hills".  Misozi is the farmers' own export and marketing company consisting of six member cooperatives.  Cooperative Coffees buys from two of the six members, IAKB and Abakangukiyekawa. 

The Misozi cooperatives are spread across the lush mountains of Rwanda.  This is the very rooftop of Africa, the watershed between the two great rivers, the Nile and the Congo, extending from the natural forests of the south to the volcanoes of the north.  Each place and people has their own character and beauty, and from each cooperative comes a distinctive coffee of the highest quality.

Hearing from the farmer's perspective:
"Since I was a child, coffee has meant a lot to me - income for food, clothes, and school fees...Early on my parents gave me a few trees to look after as a kind of inheritance...we invested a lot in our trees in terms of time and mulching...but we were getting very low prices from the middlemen.  So in 1990 we formed an association, to combine our harvest.  Later, when we heard about a coffee washing station near Kigali, one of us went to see.  That was how the idea was hatched - and we started in 2003 with our own mini washing station.  It was successful, and we have extended it to what we have today.  Now we get much better prices." - Constance Niyamboro.

A fellow farmer Speciose Baziruwiha adds, "Coffee for us is more than just a crop.  It is our main income, our wealth and security.  Now we're selling our coffee directly, other farmers are very keen to join the cooperative."

IAKB Cooperative
IAKB is locatead in the valley of the Kagera River, the source of the Nile.  This is near the spectacular Rusumo falls, and a network of seven lakes, close to the border with Tanzania.  The coffee farms are in the coffee-banana belt on the edge of the Kagera National Park, home to hippos, giraffe, buffaloes, elephants and lions.

IAKB is a cooperative association smallholder farmers with 602 smallholder farmers, 199 of whom are women.  They have been FLO certified 2005  They offer fully washed bourbon arabica beans, grown at an altitude of 1,600 - 1,900 meters.  Their washing station located at Sakara uses stream-fed water with recirculation to minimise water use, traditional disk pulping, dry fermentation with intermediate washing, washing and grading for density, and soaking in rainwater.  They handsort for defects, dry on tables with shadenet and nylex, and parchment storage is in jute-and-sisal bags.

Quick information sheet on the IAKB Cooperative (pdf)

ABAKANGUKIYEKAWA
Located in the Kager river basin, east of the capital, Kigali Name means, "The people who've got coffee in their blood".  More details to come

Check out more photos of our farmer partner, Misozi Union.

Other Info on Misozi

Lot No.	Contract	ICO Mark	Bill of Lading	Invoice	Organic Transaction Cert