Our Story
How It Started
In 2013, Bloomberg Philanthropies engaged Sustainable Growers as a partner, a non-profit that brought an innovative training component to the coffee business and had a commitment to bring smallholder farmers up the coffee value chain. Sustainable Growers provides agricultural training, coffee processing, and market-based skills to women coffee farmers and their families in Rwanda and DRC. To date over 40,000 women farmers have been enrolled in training which helped to increase the value of their crops in the first months of training by more than 40%.
2013
The first Let's Talk Coffee conference happened at the Women's Opportunity Center in Kayonza. This activity introduced the Sustainable Growers coffee program to women coffee farmers, buyers/roasters community and key partners.
2014
Coffee Program begins with two coops. The program enrolled the first two cooperatives — Nyampinga cooperative (61 devoted women members) and the Twongerumusaruro wa Kawa (TUK) cooperative — into the Sustainable Growers coffee program, designed to train women farmers specifically on the seed to cup process to create more business opportunities in the coffee value chain.
Devised an innovative model called The Premium Sharing Rewards (PSR) which seeks to recognize and reward the best performing farmers and farmer teams in the coffee program. The funding comes from an additional premium paid by coffee buyers, roasters and consumers — as recognition to farmers for their hard work in coffee farming.
Enrolled 4,001 women farmers from two cooperatives in the coffee program.
2015
Held the first graduations and PSR ceremonies for the coffee program enrollees with 95% having successfully completed the training curriculum.
The second Let's Talk Coffee at Serena Kigali Hotel, welcomed a host of players throughout the coffee value chain including coffee women farmers, buyers, government officials, researchers and agronomists.
Launched coffee washing stations and started the first processing season while renting storage facilities with Nyampinga and TUK cooperatives in the Southern and Eastern Provinces of Rwanda. With profit generated from these first two seasons, both cooperatives managed to construct their own coffee storage and office facilities and set up more drying tables. Nyampinga later extended construction to include canteen, offices and conference hall.
2016
Question Coffee opened to showcase the high-quality, specialty coffee grown by the graduates of the coffee training program and sell it locally to every major hotel, restaurant and national park in Rwanda. Revenues from Question Coffee were directly reinvested in the coffee training program.
2017
Enrolled an additional 28,883 (in Rwanda) and 4,386 (in Democratic Republic of Congo) women coffee farmers, and 75 (Rwanda) and 2 (DRC) cooperatives in the coffee program.
Launched the Relationship Coffee Women model to provide extension services to farmers.
Hosted the third Let's Talk Coffee conference at Kigali Marriott Hotel, highlighting the continued partnerships between buyers and female coffee farmers.
Facilitated coffee farmers to attend African Fine Coffees Association (AFCA) in Ethiopia.
2018
Question Coffee became a coffee centre and training hub at newly established location.
Graduation and PSR ceremonies of 2018 Cohort.
Started implementation of activities in a climate change mainstreaming pilot under the Ministry of Agriculture funded by the Rwanda Green Fund. Sustainable Growers is the coffee implementation partner on this project.
Coffee tourism started with farm tours conducted by coffee farmers of TUK cooperative in conjunction with Question Coffee. The coop is regularly visited by tourists who get to immerse themselves in a seed to cup experience where they meet the people behind award-winning Rwandan specialty coffee.
2019
Cupping lab and exhibition room constructed for TUK in Kayonza District.
By September 2019, program delivered home roasting training to 28,232 women farmers.
Hosted the fourth Let's Talk Coffee conference held at Serena Kigali Hotel, themed Farming Families as a Business.
Facilitated coffee farmers to attend African Fine Coffees Association (AFCA) in Uganda.
Supported coop leaders to attend Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) conference in Boston, Massachusetts, United States.
Visited The Wing, a co-working space for women in New York with cooperative leaders.
2020
Expo 2020 Dubai featured 25 selected projects providing tangible solutions to the world's biggest challenges. Question Coffee was selected from a pool of 1,175 finalists and featured in a series of Best Practice Events during the Expo (1 October 2021 – 31 March 2022), showcasing Sustainable Growers' work empowering women and creating international market access for coffee growers.
Coffee washing station, cupping lab, office and storage facilities launched for Mayogi Coffee in Gicumbi District in the Northern Province.
2021
Equipped cupping lab and showroom launched at Nyampinga in Nyaruguru District.