UTZ certification project in Burundi

End of 2015 Supremo and Succam decided to partner together in order to obtain the UTZ certification of 5 WS owned by Succam. The project was developed between the Supremo office in Bruges, our representative in Burundi, Antoine Nitunga, and Succam. Once certified Supremo will be the first to be able offer UTZ certified coffee out of Burundi!

An enormous effort was made in certifying 6,135 small holder farmers through the hiring of 10 agronomists in the field and appointing group leaders (240 in total) within the catchment areas of the 5 WS located in the counties of Burambi and Buyengero (South West region below Bujumbura). All coffees are grown at an altitude ranging between 1500m and 2000m.

The main challenge at the start of the program was to convince the farmers to adhere to the certification. On average more than 50% of the farmers within the catchment area of the WS signed in which means that, if successful, there is still a large potential to grow.

With the agronomists we worked on the three pillars of the UTZ program: Good agricultural practices, respect of the environment and social responsibility. More specifically we worked on:

• Mulching

• Weading

• Stumping (on a very small scale , difficult to convince them)

• Free shade tree distribution

• Access to fertilizer

During our visit of the Washing Stations we held meetings with the agronomists, group leaders and farmers. Out of these meetings the farmers expressed the following concerns:

In total 288MT of green coffee was produced by the UTZ certified farmers of the 5 WS. This amounts to 45% of Succam’s total production.