Netherlands – Foreign affairs and other services – The impact of organic and regenerative farm inputs and practises and pesticides in the coffee sector, in Rwanda and Uganda: Impact study on living income and scaling opportunities

RVO/SPVO and RVO/CBI funded several projects to promote the use of organic and regenerative, local inputs, that are made on-farm, and complementary practices amongst coffee farmers in East Africa. In these projects the Rockinsoils methodology has been implemented. This methodology has been designed by Rubén Borge, an agricultural engineer. The Rockinsoils approach focuses on building fertile, living soils and includes soil management, poly-cropping, compost, biofertilizer liquid and inputs for pest and disease prevention. The approach is also based on working with communities and using local resources to design resilient, productive farming system s. Rockinsoils offers services to diagnose, plan, and improve farm s. This includes soil and crop assessments, strategic and soil fertility planning, and practical improvements, such as water harvesting, organic fertilizers, and soil regeneration. They also provide training for NGOs, farmers, and rural entrepreneurs in project management, communication, and business planning. RVO believes this is a promising intervention to increase coffee farmers’ income in a sustainable way. Recently, during a RVO field visit at Abakundakawa cooperative in Rwanda, farmers indicated that their coffee yield doubled to tripled, after the training. And of course, farmers also faced challenges, for example the time investment needed to produce compost. In Uganda some experience is gained with youth groups that produce the farm s inputs and serve as "service providers”. In Kenia, this has been further developed and a more commercial scaling model with SMEs is implemented. RVO wants to carry out an impact study to gain insights into the impact of the use of organic and farm inputs/practices on farmers’ incomes and livelihoods. In addition, RVO wants to explore the possibilities for upscaling and future programming. Therefore, we want to gain insights into what has been effective (and what not) on farmer and cooperative level and which different promising marketing concepts can be used to promote organic farm inputs and practices. This assignment is commissioned by the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) on behalf of the team Subsidy Program Responsible Business (SPVO), in close cooperation with the CBI team .