The way of doing agriculture in Burundi is very similar to its neighbouring countries. The number of coffee farmers is estimated to be
around 700 000 people. Each of them only owns a small amount of trees
on just about an eight of a hectare of land. They further group up into
cooperatives and sell their coffee cherries harvest in small quantities to a
washing station, which further processes and sells the coffees.
Such a way is on one hand
very ecological. Plantations of individual farmers are strongly fragmented, they do not form monocultures,
many different plant species are present and form a
rich ecosystem for small animals.
The problem of Burundi is a
bad economical situation, caused by decades of political instability. Frequent outbreaks of hunger and low levels of education causes and undwindling population growth, which keeps adding more and more pressure on
deforestation and claiming land for people. Trends which were successfully stopped and turned in a better direction in neighbouring Rwanda are unfortunately still continuing in Burundi.
When people are in a crisis and are unable to gain enough food from agriculture or employment, they turn to hunting wild animals to sustain themselves. This creates a lot of pressure on the Burundian natural environment. The positive developments in the coffee industry, which is the number one export of the country,
helps stabilize the situation in the society, gives people security for the future and teaches them to be responsible not only when it comes to growing coffee. The improvements are slowly expressing themselves and we hope that thanks to us and other coffee importers, this trend can be sustained and improved.