Sidama Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union (SCFCU)

Introduction

The Sidama Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union (SCFCU) unites 39 Fairtrade certified 1st grade organisations, or base groups, located throughout the mountains and valleys of the Sidama region in southern Ethiopia. Teamed with gentle climates, the low density crop has a distinctive award-winning character.

SCFCU is well known for its production of garden coffee. This means that coffee receives organic nutrients from household crops like maize and banana, and grows under a canopy of fruit trees. Some farmers also produce sugar cane and chat. 75% of household income comes from coffee.

Coffee processing and export

Farmers deliver their coffee to the collection centre at their base group where about 60% of the coffee is washed and wet processed, the remainder is dried in the sun in a natural process. SCFCU cooperatives use a quality control system to ensure only the coffee fruit meets the international standards and have verified characteristics of the Sidama origin are allowed to be exported.

The coffee is then transported to the government warehouse in Addis Ababa for milling, grading and auction. At this central warehouse, batches of coffee may be pooled to fill shipping containers. This makes it much easier to sell. During this process, certified and non-certified coffee is keep separate and traceability is maintained. SCFCU also have a government license to sell directly to international buyers and bypass the auction stage. SCFCU pack and deliver their coffee to the port of Djibouti, ready for export.

Fairtrade

70% of the profits from Fairtrade sales are redistributed to the primary cooperatives and its members. 30% is saved by the Union as a reserve fund. The representatives from primary cooperatives attend AGM meetings to make decisions about the use of this fund.

Education

The Union provides scholarships to hundreds of members’ children. It has funded three new school buildings for local primary schools. For example, at the Shilicho base group in the Dara district has used Premium funds to construct three schools. This benefits 1,200 students.

Local and cooperative infrastructure

Base organisations used the Fairtrade Premium to build new roads in their communities, construct cooperative offices and coffee warehouses, install electricity at processing facilities, and maintain pulping machinery. SCFCU has funded installation of electricity lines reaching over 5,000 community members.

Quality and productivity

The union provides professional training to all managers and coffee pulping machine operators to develop their skills in processing high quality coffee. Training is also provided to improve quality control, and inspectors assigned to each region supervise all stages of the production process.

Environment

Member cooperatives have invested in ‘eco’ pulping machinery which gives them greater control of processing, and saves energy and natural resources.

Altitude 1,800m +

Smallholders under 1 ha on average

Total area of production 42,500 ha

Growing practices Over 90% is certified organic, mostly shade-grown

Coffee variety Arabica: Sidamo,

Processing Washed (95%) and sun-dried (5%)

Coffee quality Floral and spicy, lower acidity and solid medium body

Harvest September – January

Other certifications UTZ, RFA, Ceres Organic