Restoring degraded coffee landscapes in Ethiopia

In the UNESCO biosphere reserve "Yayu Coffee Forest", the majority of the population depends on coffee as a source of income. Coffee grows naturally in the forests of Ethiopia, in partially forested systems or close to homes in "Garden Coffee" cultivation. Due to low crop yields, smallholder farmers are expanding cultivation into the protected area. Consequences are forest degradation and soil degradation. The project will introduce a low-emission and climate-resilient coffee farming system. Implementation on coffee farms will conserve biodiversity and reduce pressure on the forest. About 2,000 families will be trained in sustainable coffee growing and processing methods. Eight farmer cooperatives and the regional coffee cooperative will be supported with capacity-building activities. With the aim of scaling up, an investment-ready coffee business model and monitoring system for zero-deforestation coffee is being developed with various public and private sector stakeholders.

Project data

Countries: Ethiopia
IKI funding: 1,475,336.00 €
Duration: 09/2018 till 06/2025
Status: open
Implementing organisation: Hanns R. Neumann Stiftung
Political Partner: Environment, Forest and Climate Change Commission (EFCCC) - Ethiopia

Ministry of Agricultural Development (MoAD) - Ethiopia
Implementing Partner: Hanns R. Neumann Stiftung Ethiopia - Äthiopien

UNIQUE forestry and land use GmbH*

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State of implementation/results

A project progress field monitoring visit has been conducted by a team of local government sector stakeholders (finance, agriculture, cooperative promotion agency, environmental protection authority). It has been acknowledged that the project is contributing to the livelihood improvement while adding to the government’s efforts.
Good agricultural practices for post and pre-harvest of coffee were implemented with high motivation by farming families.
183,100 coffee seedlings were produced and managed in nurseries between 03/2024 and 09/2024. Out of these, 113,950 seedlings were sold to project beneficiaries in need by 36 youth group members. 20,630 coffee seedlings were planted by the young nursery owners themselves on their private farmland. With that the total number of planted coffee seedlings is 134,580 (74% of total produced).
Regarding rejuvenation, 4.2 hectares of old coffee land (11,618 coffee trees) on demo plots were rejuvenated by 544 farmers. Due to promising re-growth of rejuvenated coffee trees, the practice was scaled up on 26.85 hectares of old coffee land (73,678 old coffee trees) on individually owned farms by 707 farmers.
An additional 100 kg coffee seeds were purchased from Jimma Agricultural Research Centre (JARC) and the seed sowing is taking place on 17 nursery sites by 11 Farmer Field Schools and 6 youth groups for the 2025 cropping season.
A comprehensive training program was conducted for 501 (84% male, 16% female) cooperative members at site level on coffee quality management, marketing, capital formation and cooperative principles. Three cooperatives with 620 members have collected 40,540 kg dry cherries mobilizing 2,946,817 ETB farm-gate value.
An additional 142 couple seminars were conducted, and 303 change agents couples were trained out of which 54 opened joint bank accounts between 03/2024 and 09/2024.
573 households were visited by trained change agents promoting gender sensitivity across families and mainstreaming equality and equity at household level. This has contributed to fostering the Village Saving and Loan Association (VSLA) initiatives.
Project field supervision has been conducted by a team from head office that provided technical refresher trainings to field staff. The application COMMCARE is actively being used for project monitoring and support has been provided for field staff to foster digital reporting initiatives.

Latest Update:
04/2025