…huge opportunities for rural communities
BY DELISA THWALA
MBABANE – Coffee is seldom produced in Eswatini. The two founders of Eswatini Coffee see this as an opportunity and seek to lift the country’s coffee production, and their communities along with it.
Their motto being: to help others and set them up to succeed.
Eswatini Coffee was established in 2018 by two local entrepreneurs, Patrick Du Pont and Eddie Mkhatshwa.
They were inspired by Johan Hein, an aviation expert from South Africa who asked them about coffee production in Eswatini during a visit.
When he found out it was virtually non-existent, he invited them to White River, Mpumalanga in South Africa to visit Robbie Neal, a coffee farmer and friend.
“We got into the car and headed to White River. After meeting Robbie, we started planting 2,000 organic Arabica coffee plants at Elwandle and that is how Eswatini Coffee was born,” said Du Pont.
He further said they started with just three hectares in 2018, but gained experience over time, and with it the confidence to expand their hectares. By the end of 2019, they had reached over three hectares, and today they count approximately 4.3 hectares of coffee. The coffee is grown using organic materials.
“We started the project from our fields in a community called Elwandle in Eswatini. In 2020, we gathered our first harvest which was half a ton from our old trees. In 2021, our harvest increased to a ton. In 2022, it shot up to three tons. This year, production is tentative because we were affected by a hailstorm. Nonetheless, the trees have recovered and we are expecting no less than three tons,” he said explaining.
The concept of Eswatini Coffee is to grow coffee by leveraging local communities.
“We included as many people as possible because in the coffee sector, a powerful negotiation tool is quantity,” says Mkhatshwa. For instance, if the export market needs eight containers, there is no way we can be able to ship that order alone, without manpower. We wanted to ensure we have the right volumes to access the export market.” he said.
Coffee crops for rural community empowerment
The project’s core intention is to create jobs, alleviate poverty, and create opportunities for economic empowerment within rural communities, to avoid rural exodus.
The two entrepreneurs wanted to establish and scale up the production of a crop that could compete with Eswatini’s thriving exports in the long term, with the possibility of quality differentiation and better prices later on.
They also seek to offer equal opportunities to both men and women, with a focus on the professionalisation of women in the coffee sector.
Eswatini Coffee has gradually expanded its coffee-growing operations to approximately seven locations in Eswatini. As coffee growing in Eswatini is still a nascent activity, the operation has established 10 demonstration plots in different areas to study the adaptability of the coffee in each place.
Eswatini Coffee is currently working with 112 farmers in total from these communities a big leap from the original 33 farmers they had planned on engaging, and a testament to a successful buy-in from Eswatini’s rural communities. These farmers have created close to 100 jobs collectively.
Mkhatshwa shared that they are expecting their first harvest from the various lots in the next two to three years. Eswatini Coffee also offers extension assistance to all the farmers and monitors them closely.
“We will continue to help them with new varieties and to get a better income for their coffee,” he says.
“We also have good contacts from Ghana, Uganda, and India who help us share information and offer assistance to navigate issues like pests and diseases,” he said. By the end of this year, Eswatini Coffee aims for the establishment of a strong association for coffee farmers from all the farming communities that focuses on quality, value addition, and enabled access to the international market. Du Pont says they plan to assist the farmers on de-husking and grading the coffee they produce, and on the rest of their export logistics to ensure that they earn more from their coffee.
