Coffee is considered to be an important generator of foreign currency in several countries, making a significant contribution to the total value of exports. In Mozambique, the sector still faces many challenges, mainly related to the lack of investment in research and low domestic consumption.
A few years ago, the sector only had a few brands, namely the traditional Café da Gorongosa and Café do Niassa. The country’s accession to the International Coffee Organisation in 2023 has brought new hope to producers, who hope to have access to more projects and see the situation improve in terms of exports and profits.
Currently, other new brands have emerged to exploit a market that is still almost virgin. One example is Café Chimanimani, produced by Agrotur Lda, in the area where the Chimanimani National Park is located, in Manica province, in the centre of Mozambique.
It is an organic product, 100% Mozambican, which in January this year began to be exported to the United Kingdom. Café Chimanimani is produced as part of an agro-forestry system, which contributes to the reforestation of degraded and deforested areas of the reserve to protect the soil, flora and fauna.
In an exclusive interview with Diário Económico, Francisco Mandlate, a journalist, farmer and executive director of Agrotur, explains in detail how the project is progressing, four years after its implementation, what the prospects are and what assessment can be made of the coffee market in the country.
What is Café Chimanimani and how did you come up with the idea?
The Café Chimanimani project began in 2020. It is a 100% Mozambican initiative, which is the result of my own experiences as part of my reporting work throughout my career as a journalist, in which I had the opportunity to realise that agriculture in Mozambique is dominated by foreign capital and by small farmers integrated into value chains and development systems, in other words, still in a model that adopts colonial practices, where there is exploitation of the small producer and cheap labour.
Faced with this paradigm, I decided, after several years, that I should challenge the existing agricultural model by implementing a project in the area of coffee to show that it is possible to integrate families into development schemes, into value chains and, at the same time, provide a change of life, with the aim of boosting the country’s development and the growth of the economy, influencing public policies so that they can see and prove that it is possible to make a profound transformation.
As we know, coffee has an interesting component that allows producers to adapt to climate change. When planted in agro-forestry systems, it opens up space for farmers to reforest areas based on a cash crop that at the same time allows them to produce food such as corn, beans, fruit and vegetables.
So we started to set up the project from this perspective and chose a region like Chimanimani, in the province of Manica, in the centre of Mozambique, because it is an area that suffers from deforestation due to logging, mining, poaching and uncontrolled burning.
By bringing in the coffee narrative, we offer families an alternative source of income so that they can survive and preserve biodiversity and history. People become active in protecting and restoring degraded areas.
In terms of impact, how many farmers or families are working on the project?
At the moment, we have 400 families working within the fostering system. The aim is for each producer to have an area of at least 1 hectare. Of course, this work is done gradually, there is a process in which we provide the first seedlings, and the farmer has to prove that they take good care of them. Then it grows according to the way he looks after the field.
In this process, we guarantee technical assistance, with a team of qualified extension workers, some of whom are in training. We have chosen to focus on valorising Local Content and we are giving priority to young people from the area. Each technician is responsible for 25 producers to ensure that they produce to the required standards, with quality and quantity.
We feel that the work carried out by the “Café Chimanimani” initiative is positive. Before there were degraded, almost desert-like areas, but today everything has been recovered and is more alive. We’ve started the harvesting process, we’re paying fair prices and we’ve seen changes in people’s lifestyles.
How is the process of exporting Café Chumanimani going and which countries have invested in buying it?
We exported 500kg of Chimanimani coffee for the first time this year, and our main destinations were the UK, Austria, Japan and Denmark.
Unfortunately, our production is still very small, but we hope to grow a little more this year and surpass the gains made in 2023, when we produced 2.5 tonnes.
In general, we’re aiming for six or seven tonnes, there are 40 producers who are already harvesting and we intend to expand to more regions.
As far as earnings are concerned, how much has your project already raised?
Earnings are still low, given the amount of investment we’ve been making. Fortunately we’ve had support in recent years from the “Mozbio” project, because of our commitment to the process of restoring forests, and they have a support component for initiatives of this kind.
However, it’s still too early to start talking about big gains, and obviously we have very high losses, because we’re still in the maturing phase of the project, but our perspective is that we’ll have gains, at the very least, for the producers of at least 600,000 meticals for each hectare owned by a producer, because they can’t earn less than that. We’re doing everything we can to support them so that they have good production.
Looking at the “quality” component, how do you rate the coffee produced in the country compared to others?
Speaking specifically of Café Chimanimani, the results of the surveys carried out internally, as well as by our customers in the UK, show that it’s proven – it’s a special product. In terms of scoring, the coffee scored 84 points on the SCA (Specialty Coffee Association) scale, so we were able to mark up the price when marketing.
Last year, Mozambique officially joined the World Coffee Organisation. What impact has this action had?
It’s gratifying because it will help us gain access to technology and researchers in the field. The “Café Chimanimani” project is already benefiting from some advantages, in particular from the tricafé initiative, made up of Mozambique, Brazil and Portugal, the latter two countries having the best coffee research in the world.
So, scientists from Brazil and Portugal are supporting us with research and samples, giving us access to improved seeds, carrying out tests to understand at what altitude we can produce and which varieties are suitable for each type of soil.
In-depth research is being carried out, with access to state-of-the-art laboratories and equipment, with highly qualified staff who, for a period of five years, will work with us so that we can give the best to our customers and producers.
In general terms, what is your assessment of the coffee sector in Mozambique?
It’s still in its infancy. There is a lot of work to be done, we need to have access to realistic statistics, there needs to be investment in research, in training technicians and ensuring that people have the mechanisms to be able to develop it.
Coffee takes three years of production, from planting to harvesting, it’s a long and hard period in terms of labour, which requires funding. Therefore, we need to have specific packages that meet this need, identify the best varieties of the product so that we can guarantee income, especially for families.
Mozambique is a challenging territory in terms of access to finance, especially for the agricultural era because of the various extreme weather events that cause serious damage. Against this backdrop, what is it like to be a farmer in this country?
It’s a great challenge, and I really haven’t been able to understand how, with so many adversities, we’ve managed to implement our project. But it’s been possible thanks to the community where we’re working.
When we started, we didn’t have any funds. We practically started from a conviction that we had to do something for the country and the people. It was a work that started from “scratch”, in which we had to negotiate with the communities, and they supported us and even did the work without receiving any salary.
We still don’t pay monthly salaries due to lack of conditions, but we have people who have joined and embraced the project. We’re trying to turn things around and get out of extreme poverty. These are producers who have understood our vision and every day we strive to overcome the difficulties.
Our technicians walk long distances, up and down mountains, they are young Mozambicans who have given themselves to the cause and are helping to provide assistance to the producers. We work with organic products, we don’t use chemicals, we test innovative mechanisms.
The government has many projects in the area of agriculture, such as SUSTENTA. Apart from Mozbio, what other support has Café Chimanimani received?
Mozbio is giving a lot of support to our project, there are other initiatives, but unfortunately they impose many constraints that we may not yet be able to fulfil. For example, there are various programmes in which they provide up to 70% of the necessary investment, but then you have to cover 30% in order to move up.
We’re still on our way! In the meantime, we’re training to reach the highest levels.
It’s still in its infancy.There’s a lot of work that needs to be done, we need to have access to realistic statistics, there needs to be investment in research, in training technicians and ensuring that people have the mechanisms to be able to develop it
What are your prospects for the future?
We want to grow in a sustainable way and we’re doing everything we can not to be totally dependent. We’re striving to achieve the quality and quantity of coffee so that exports improve and become bigger.
Today, we’re enjoying great success in the UK, there are companies that buy and approve of our product and, for the first time this year, we took part in the London Coffee Festival, an event that normally only Colombian coffees attend. But because someone felt that our product had quality, they took it to this competition, and it’s these actions that encourage us.
Cleusia Chirindza
