JOSEPH NK ANDU AND NUCAFE Joseph Nkandu empowers coffee farmers to take ownership in the value chain through the Farmer Ownership Model. This results in increased economic gains for farmers and it also changes traditional power structures in the coffee industry.
Fellow Name
Joseph Nkandu
Organization
National Union of Coffee Agribusinesses and Farm Enterprises14 (NUCAFE), founded in 2003
Country of Impact
Uganda
Website
http://nucafe.org
Budget
$2 million
Number of Employees
53 (plus 250 farmer associations in the field)
The work of NUCAFE, which is the national association of coffee farmers in Uganda, illustrates how social entrepreneurs use systems change approaches to change power dynamics. NUCAFE’s work has produced significant benefits for millions of people throughout Uganda and beyond. Over the past two decades, NUCAFE reshaped the entire coffee production value chain in Uganda through an innovative business model known as the Farmer Ownership Model. Instead of selling coffee as flowers or red cherries to processors, farmers pay a service fee to these processors and stay in control of
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SYSTEMIC AND EMPOWERING
the coffee as it gets refined to ungraded, graded, or even roasted beans. These latter products sell at much higher margins, allowing farmers to increase their income by 250% on average, compared to the traditional model. NUCAFE is a relatively small organization with 53 employees. Still, 1.5 million coffee farmers—
