Aside from its beautiful hilly landscapes, waterfalls, flora, and fauna, the Mbeya region is known for being the breadbasket of Tanzania. The southern highlands of the country have enough rainfall and fertile soil that enables almost effortless growth of coffee (Arabica), tea, cocoa, maize, rice, bananas, beans, potatoes, sunflower, wheat, and other crops. Among the smallholder farmers that cultivate these crops are Elieza and Meliha Mtafia. The young couple grows a variety of crops and keeps goats and cattle, but most of their income comes from coffee.

However, over the years, there has been a gradual rise in temperature during the dry season. This has made irrigating their plants a literal uphill battle between the months of June – October which are generally the dry season months in the Southern coffee growing region. Since there is an inadequate water supply in their rural village, the couple would have to trek down to the valley to fetch water from a nearby stream, then climb back up the steep slopes with about 20 litres of water on their head. They would then have to repeat the hard task several times.

The distance from Meliha’s house and the valley that she would trek down to fetch water

However, in 2016 Elieza and Meliha learned that the initiative for coffee&climate (c&c) was offering training on climate-smart practices for coffee farmers in their village and they registered to participate in the training sessions. The project is being implemented by Hanns R. Neumann Stiftung (HRNS). Through the training, the couple learned about interesting solutions that would solve many of their problems.

Eventually, their exemplary and consistent adoption of the climate-smart practices they learned through the c&c training sessions paid off. Their problem of erosion was minimized by the application of live mulch. They learned a cheap alternative to using pesticides by using alcohol pest traps. They dug trenches to collect water during the rainy season and planted bananas in their coffee garden to increase the amount of shade for their coffee during the dry season.

The couple also attended gender training sessions which encouraged even distribution of domestic and farm labor so that Meliha could have more time on her hands to access the c&c training sessions and other opportunities. Farming families were sensitized to the benefits of joint decision-making on household expenditure and planning. This ultimately positively impacted the couple’s overall yields, income, and household development.

Morris and his wife Erize Mwashirindi have been growing Arabica coffee in Southern Tanzania for decades since Morris inherited his father’s land. Although Southern Tanzania experiences only one rainy season in the year, the rainfall can be quite heavy and prolonged. This causes several problems including soil erosion and the increased occurrence of fungal coffee diseases such as Coffee Berry Disease (CBD) and Coffee Leaf Rust (CLR). To add insult to injury, over the years, the couple’s coffee trees have significantly aged and are yielding fewer cherries. These challenges ultimately reduced the couple’s coffee yields and their family’s main source of income.

As an alternative to the old, low-yielding varieties that are susceptible to major coffee diseases such as CBD and CLR, HRNS distributed improved seedlings to c&c project participants. These improved seedlings are hybrids of varieties that are resistant to disease and varieties that are high-yielding. They are created through an ancient technique called grafting. Hereby tissues of two different plants are joint. They keep growing together, combining the properties of both “parent” plants. Like this, issues like disease susceptibility and low-yielding can be overcome. So far, HRNS has supplied over 30,000 new seedlings of the disease-resistant compact varieties to c&c project participants in Tanzania.

Morris and Erize were extremely impressed by the yields of their improved varieties. Their harvest more than tripled when they expanded their coffee plantation by adding another 1.5 acres of improved varieties. Every season, they used to harvest about 400 kg of coffee from their 1.5 acres of old coffee plants but now they harvest about 1,250 kg of coffee from both their old and new trees. This exponential increase prompted Morris and Erize to begin a business of selling improved coffee seedlings to their community members.

Morris and Erize have begun a coffee nursery of improved varieties to sell to their community

Morris and Erize have come to terms with the fact that they need to either stump their old coffee plants or completely replace them with the improved varieties. Understandably, they were initially reluctant to do so because despite the many other crops they grow for both food and income, coffee is by far their most lucrative cash crop. With continued support from the c&c Tanzania team, they will continue to improve their farm management and also encourage other farmers to grow improved seedlings. c&c is advocating for and supporting the growth of shade trees alongside the improved seedlings. This agroforestry can contribute to reducing carbon dioxide in the air and as a result, mitigate climate change. It will also hopefully protect farmers against rises in temperature which are predicted to continue to put a strain on coffee production in the future.

Climate change is putting a strain on coffee production and the greatest impact is faced by smallholder farming families who depend on the lucrative cash crop for their livelihoods. Frankly, it is women, more than men, who are at the center of the struggle. This is not only because women do up to 90% of the agricultural work on farms, but also because women are disadvantaged by patriarchal norms and traditions that give them less access to opportunities and decision-making power than men. These disadvantages increase women’s vulnerability to climate change while reducing their ability to manage the impacts of climate change.

In East Africa, women are generally responsible for running households and working on farms. This entails walking long distances to collect firewood and fetch water. This significantly increases women’s workload leaving them with little time to attend training about climate-smart agricultural practices. Women are also typically excluded from planning and decision-making within their households because of the patriarchal nature of the family structure. This ultimately weakens the economic progress of women and limits the development of their families. 

These gender disparities make it clear that climate action must include the promotion of gender equality at the household and farmer organizational levels. Therefore, the initiative for coffee&climate (c&c) is integrating gender into its climate action in East Africa. Through our implementing partner Hanns R. Neumann Stiftung (HRNS), we are conducting gender training sessions in Tanzania and Uganda.

The gender training encourages men to share domestic and farm labor with women to increase the implementation of climate-smart practices at household level. Additionally, men are encouraged to include women in decision-making about household expenditure to increase investments in time-saving technologies so that women can attend training in climate-smart practices.

At the same time, equipping leaders of farmer organizations with the knowledge, skills, and tools about how to combat the gender disparities that affect their work with farmers leads to more female members building their resilience to climate change and accessing leadership positions in farmer organizations. As leaders of farmer organizations, women can advocate for more women-friendly policies to grow female membership and thus, strengthen the production, climate resilience, and overall activities of the farmer organizations e.g. marketing, loan facilities, accessing genuine agricultural inputs etc.

To enable women to attend climate adaptation training offered by HRNS, time-saving technologies are key. These include more efficient cooking stoves and domestic water harvesting tanks. The efficient cooking stoves save women time as the amount of firewood that they need to work is significantly less. This relatively cheap energy alternative to firewood is more beneficial because it decreases the rate of deforestation.

Domestic water harvesting tanks enable the storage of rainwater which saves women from having to walk long distances to fetch water daily. The time saved allows women more frequent participation in training on climate-smart practices. They can also follow their interests and diversify the household’s income which creates higher resistance of the farm to climatic impacts such as droughts or floods.

In Tanzania, a retired pastor, called Tukupasia Bugali and her husband are among many farmers who have accessed gender training from c&c. They were also given a water tank and a clean cooking stove through the project.

“The tank is extremely helpful to our household, and it makes irrigation easier. It has also enabled us to begin a coffee nursery of wilt-resistant coffee seedlings because irrigation is easier.” – Tukupasia Bugali 

Although women are more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change than men, on the contrary, they also have the power to effect change. If given the chance to attend training on climate-smart practices, women generally take up climate-smart farming practices better than their male counterparts. Additionally, when women are included in household decision-making, they can improve household expenditure increasing the likelihood of investments in time-saving technologies and climate-smart tools and technologies. If included in the leadership of farmer organizations, women can also positively influence and affect policies so that more women become members and participate in activities and training on climate-smart practices. For these reasons, c&c will continue to integrate gender into its climate change interventions in East Africa.

Coffee is everywhere. It’s so much more than a drink, it’s part of our culture, it’s a way to meet people, to relax and to recharge. As a barista, I have had the opportunity to gain further insight into coffee production, the way coffee is processed and how we can prepare it. But what was rarely spoken about was where coffee comes from and the farmers who grow it. Since I am also a photographer and filmmaker studying Marine and Natural History Photography at Falmouth University in the UK, as part of my final project, I decided to take a journey to discover where my favorite drink is grown and meet the people behind it.

My journey began in Costa Rica, where I discovered the most shocking thing – climate change is destroying coffee plants and impacting the livelihoods of millions of farmers who depend on it.  I met many farmers who were experiencing problems with coffee leaf rust and coffee berry borer. This, they explained were the side effects of climate change i.e. extreme temperatures and unpredictable rains. I realized that is an important story to tell, and so, I began a project called “It’s Bean Too Hot”, a documentary exploring the lives of coffee farmers who have been impacted by climate change, and the solutions they have implemented to adapt.

It was at this point that my journey led me to where it all began – Africa. Through my research for the documentary, I found the initiative for coffee&climate (c&c) and immediately got in touch with Hanns R. Neumann Stiftung (HRNS) who are implementing c&c. I proposed a shoot in one of their coffee regions, filming the work they do with coffee farmers. Fast forward a few months and there I was, standing with my partner Duncan at Mbeya airport (southwest Tanzania), looking at a guy in an HRNS sign smiling and waving at us.

Godfrey, the c&c coordinator at HRNS usually works in Arusha, but at that time he was in the south of Tanzania to take us around the coffee farms and show us the work of c&c.  As we sat down to talk about the plans for the next two weeks, Mwajuma, an agronomist with more passion for coffee than anyone I’ve ever met made us a delicious cup of local coffee. But even with all the planning we had done, nothing could have prepared us for what we were about to experience.

Although it was the wet season in Mbeya, the effects of climate change were evident at every farm we visited. We saw extremely dry coffee plants and coffee trees that were infected with diseases like the Coffee Berry Disease (CBD) which left the trees completely bare. When we spoke to some farmers about the changes they had noticed over the years, they mentioned they had also witnessed massive deforestation in their local areas which has increased the heat on their farms and created a further struggle in collecting firewood.

“Now due to increased human population, human activities, trees have reduced, water level has decreased and the air has been thick.” – Tukupasia Bugali

Although we witnessed struggle and fear for the future, it wasn’t the only thing we saw. It was also very clear to me that the farmers are incredibly grateful for the work HRNS is doing as the implementor of c&c. They were proud to show us the demonstration plots that HRNS helped them set-up which was where they practically learned good agricultural practices (GAPs) and climate-smart agricultural practices to help them build their coffee’s resilience to climate change.

Later on, Godfrey and Mwajuma took us to see the farmers that had adopted these practices themselves. It was very clear that we found ourselves in healthy and prosperous coffee farms. The farmers were applying mulching to protect the soil from the heat, trapping pests with alcohol traps and growing bananas that gave the coffee plants shade, but also an alternative business to support their families. On the second day of filming, we could clearly distinguish the farms that were working with HRNS from those who weren’t.

For us and the documentary, it was very important to highlight the role of women in coffee farming and the interventions that c&c takes to ease the burden of women and give them a voice. We were welcomed to a coffee and avocado farm by a retired pastor, who together with her husband had been trained on coffee farming post-retirement. They had been given a water tank and a clean cooking stove from HRNS and were excited to show us how successful they are now because of this.

“In empowering women it was suggested that women should be given a tank for water collection in order to irrigate the coffee nursery. In this tank we managed to have a nursery for trees so it helps us in doing irrigation. The second, which is the biggest one, is for household use. Water is very far from the river so when it rains the tank is full.” – Tukupasia Bugali

I could tell how grateful the pastor was for this donation and she even mentioned that she allows the whole community to use the water from the tank. Her and her husband were clearly very impacted by the gender mainstreaming project and openly talked to us about the change that is now happening in empowering women.

“If you educate a woman you will educate the whole community. It’s very beneficial to the community and also the husband can benefit.” – Tukupasia Bugali

On most days, Duncan and I kept pinching ourselves in complete awe of our situation, unable to comprehend the beautiful place where we found ourselves and the generosity of the people around us. Godfrey, Mwajuma and all of the HRNS staff have been an incredible support to us in the process of creating this film. We have returned from Tanzania with a better understanding of what farmers are going through but are also filled with hope for the future because of the hard work HRNS is doing. We are excited to share this story through the documentary coming in a few months, hoping that it will reach as many coffee drinkers out there as possible and that through the awareness raised by this documentary we can make a positive change to the farmers‘ livelihoods.

Johannes Thoma (26), Executive Management Assistant at implementing partner Hanns R. Neumann Stiftung recently visited Tanzania to learn more about the gender component of c&c.

“I have seen women walking 10 hours to get water! “, I grumbled as I lifted myself out of comfort. I should have known that this argument would not fly all too well with my girlfriend.

As I stumbled towards the kitchen to take matters in my own hands, I reflected on both my not so convincing argument as well as my experiences at HRNS´s coffee&climate gender mainstreaming project in Southern-Tanzania while overhearing the “we are not coffee farmers” from the other room.

I was not mistaken, though. There are simpler things in life than being a woman in a coffee-growing-household. In many coffee regions, women do up to 90% of the field and harvest work. Meanwhile, women in coffee households are rarely involved in decision making, and higher value-generating activities as the income generated from coffee are mostly channeled through men. Women cannot allocate enough time as they are busy with all the household labour. This inequality is being carried from generation to generation, and women remain powerless.

For two years now, HRNS´s c&c Gender Mainstream Component has been working together with female and male coffee farmers. The initiative is supporting and linking farming families to measures and products that put a stop to this tradition and empower female farmers and furthermore, the whole family.

These domestic rainwater basins I visited, although simple, are significant innovations. Just the sheer time that can be saved is astounding not to mention avoiding the hazardous and sometimes dangerous routes women take to supply their coffee farm and family with water. Incomparable to my fridge-odyssey.

Joyce Hamala, a coffee farmer from Tanzania, explained: “Previously I used to go to the stream to fetch water daily but after installing the domestic rainwater harvesting basin I don´t think of not having water at home when I am in the field and I can therefore invest my time into production.” I could tell how proud they were of the tank judging by how meticulously clean the couple kept it and the platform the tank was resting on. They could teach me a thing or two about my kitchen, I thought.

The water gathered is used for sanitation, hygiene, and farming. Saved time thanks to these basins allow women more frequent participation in training and farmer group activities. They can also follow their own interests and ultimately are able to diversify the household’s income which creates higher stress-resistance of the farm to outside factors such as droughts or floods.

Like with water management, the clean and efficient cooking stoves save the women time as the quantity of wood that is to be acquired significantly decreases as well as the rate of deforestation. Additionally, solar panels saves the household money and protects the health of women and the whole family as they don’t need to worry about changing batteries or alternative sources of energy.

Concluding, these measures that c&c is introducing into the coffee communities would serve my girlfriend an even better counterargument that things in Tanzania are changing which means that I will need to keep getting water myself from now on.

By Johannes Thoma