Promotion of sustainable food production practices

Component 2 is directly aligned with Component 2 of the FOLUR Impact Program - Promotion of sustainable food production practices & responsible commodity value chains. It aims to contribute to the transformation of food production systems, through work with small-scale farmers in Ethiopia’s coffee zones – achieving sustainable intensification and increase in yields without causing further deforestation, and enhancing access to global markets for sustainably produced coffee. A significant amount (close to 80%) of coffee produced in Ethiopia is from small-scale farmer-managed systems, where levels of management and intensification differ from one system to another. The remaining 20% of coffee production is either under plantation coffee (5-10%) or forest coffee (between 5-10%). The bulk of small-scale production (i.e. the close to 80%) occurs in mixed production systems, where other crops are grown for consumption and market. These small ‘coffee farms’, often not exceeding 2ha, represent perhaps the last corridors and buffers to remaining forests, which are threatened by production of other agricultural crops and commodities.  

The change that can be expected as a result of interventions through Component 2 of the project relates to the pathway to change shown in the middle of the Theory of Change diagram – the strengthening of smallholder farmer support systems for sustainable agroforestry, with partnerships for investment in sustainable coffee supply chains. Through this component, the project will contribute to the implementation of the Ethiopian Coffee and Tea Authority (ECTA) vision and strategy, to grow the sector, through increased production, productivity, quality and marketability of Ethiopian coffee. This will, in turn, lead to higher level change of better incomes for farmers, reducing pressure on the forest for timber extraction and crop expansion – as a result of improved agronomic practices, diversification of cash crops, improved agroforestry with indigenous shade-tree species, higher yields including coffee, and higher prices from specialty coffee. This component will make significant investments in a two-pronged approach that promotes increased investments in on-farm restoration/rejuvenation of degraded coffee crops through stumping or pruning by providing an ‘incentive package’ which includes pruning tools and equipment to farmers who commit to make this investment, and this will be complemented with training by specialized coffee extension agents (i.e. updating the technical skills of existing extension agents and training new ones) who will be trained through the child project to provide integrated technical support to smallholder farmers. The rational is that this investment is needed to increase coffee incomes, which is key to ‘keeping farmers in coffee’ as the alternative – abandoning coffee for other crops - is detrimental to Ethiopia’s remaining forests. 

The component will build on and scale up the experiences of past and current interventions on improved coffee farmer support models and training such as those implemented by TechnoServe as well as to complement the interventions currently being rolled out under the EU Café project. Strong coordination with the EU Café project is already being discussed, as the two projects pursue similar objectives. Both EU Café and the FOLUR project will have project-supported staff co-located at ECTA head offices and closely coordinate on activity planning to ensure that these two initiatives complement rather than compete or overlap. Some of the activities (e.g. EU Café project Output 2 and FOLUR project Output 2.2 and 2.4) will in fact require joint design, planning and roll out, as the nature and implementation modality to be proposed for the incentive package will require official government approval. Through this component, the project will also support the strengthening of stakeholder dialogue, collaboration and action at different levels, by investing in ECTA’s institutional capacity to bring together all stakeholders through a national level platform (i.e. Ethiopian/National Coffee Platform) building on the work already underway by ECTA of establishing a ‘stakeholder network’, and by supporting regional level structures that bring together stakeholders and actors at the Oromia, SNNP and Sidama regional levels (i.e. Regional Coffee Platforms). ECTA’s capacity to engage with international coffee stakeholders and market players will also be supported, including capacity to engage at the level of the International Coffee Organization (ICO), which Ethiopia is a member of.