Dukundekawa is the perfect example of a committed cooperative! Founded in 2003, the Dukunde Kawa cooperative today brings together almost 2,000 farmers, 80% of whom are women. The cooperative is located just 50 km north of Kigali as the crow flies, but after more than 2 hours 30 on winding tracks.
At this cooperative, the water used to wash the coffee is reused. The cooperative encourages farmers to reforest their plots and plant shade trees. When a farmer leaves the cooperative with a coffee plant, he also gets a shade tree. She has also set up a system of financial aid with the creation of a "Farmers saving account": the possibility of taking out a small low-interest loan with the cooperative.
The cooperative has been Fairtrade certified since 2005. Thanks to Fairtrade premium prices, the cooperative has been able to finance the purchase of cows for members of its community, thus helping to diversify its income, provide health insurance and training in agronomy, with the aim of becoming ever more sustainable and improving coffee quality.
Dunkunde kawa is also behind the Musasa Milk project, which helps to diversify farmers' incomes by giving them a cow. The cow is used to fertilise the fields, but also to sell milk to the cooperative, which processes it into yoghurts and other dairy products for the local market.
