Burundi : Agahore

Agahore is both a wet mill and farm located in Gaterama village. They have a close relationship with Murambi villagers where their first washing station was established in 2012. Four years later Gaterama was opened. They operate separately from each other to provide specific quality decisions and have separate catchment areas, though can pull together when needed to provide volume and profile flexibility. The washing stations buy coffee from producers surrounding each washing station as well as producing their own on a shared farm for each location.

This further benefits the producers and is seen as part of the reason Agahore has been successful – involving the community form the very beginning and making them part of the success. Separation and filtration systems are installed to clean the Mubarazi river water that is used for processing the washed coffees. Shade trees and seedlings are produced and distributed to improve the quality. “Umuremera” or the African Cherry tree is a threatened native variety. It is a wonderful shade tree in coffee farms and the bark is used in numerous ways. Goats are also given to farmers too to improve the production of organic fertilisers and mulch is used to maintain moisture in the soil and supress weeds on the fields.