A farmer dips his hands into a bin of “coffee
cherries” in Tanzania. Credit: Sustainable Harvest 

Using Technology to Reap Rewards for Coffee Farmers and Protect Chimpanzees

Thanks to the pioneering research of Jane Goodall, people around the world have a better understanding of chimpanzees that live in the Gombe region of eastern Tanzania, yet few people realize how indebted these primates are to sustainably grown coffee.

When farmers in the Gombe region of eastern Tanzania use traditional methods to soak, ferment and pulp their coffee beans, they end up needing a great deal of water while producing poor quality coffee that sells for very little. One alternative is for farmers to convert their plantations to other crops, but doing so requires cutting down shade cover relied upon by chimpanzees in the nearby reserve.

Sustainable Harvest Coffee Importers, an organization dedicated to improving the lives of farmers in the developing world, is offering farmers a better option, helping them revitalize their coffee production with water-efficient coffee pulping technologies, cupping equipment, and barcode readers linked to distribution databases. These technologies improve the quality of coffee crops, reduce water waste, and increase farmers' income, all while protecting the chimpanzees’ shade habitat.

Read more: Purchase sustainable coffee from Tanzania's Gombe Reserve  

		Biodiversity
	www.sustainableharvest.com