São Paulo – In its fourth year in existence, South Sudan is bearing one of its first fruit: a typical coffee, of the Robusta variety, grown since the first days following its independence. The project is a partnership between local farmers, the Swiss coffee company Nespresso and the non-governmental organization TecnhoServe. The result is a crop of “Suluja ti South Sudan,” the name of the coffee whose capsules were released in October, and which will be initially sold only in France because only a small amount of it is available. According to Nespresso, this is one of the first agricultural products ever exported from South Sudan, which is heavily dependent on oil revenues.
After years of war and disputes, South Sudan split from Sudan following a referendum in July 2011. Even after splitting up, the two countries kept fighting. Nevertheless, the coffee production endeavor began in that same year.
Nespresso started working with the coffee production chain with local farmers. The company invested 700,000 Swiss francs in producing the coffee, an amount equivalent to USD 696,400, and plans to go on operating in the African country. It intends to spend USD 2.4 million by 2020 in developing the coffee production chain there.
In an email interview to ANBA, the global head of CSV (Creating Shared Value) at Nespresso, Daniel Weston, said the South Sudan project entailed building an industry virtually from the ground up. ““The civil war in South Sudan resulted in the destruction of the majority of the coffee industry in South Sudan, which has led to several challenges for re-building this industry. Trees need to be replanted and it takes time to put the infrastructure in place to support coffee commercialisation. For example, marketing channels do not currently exist (in South Sudan).”
Weston said that in 2014, the project had to be halted over “security concerns.” Still, once efforts resumed late last year, production was at “advanced” levels and there were farmers “eager” to be trained. The company will not disclose the planted area or the size of the harvest, but says the farms take up large tracts of land. According to Weston, South Sudan is the “cradle” of coffee and there are still plantations in the “wilds.”
South Sudanese coffee comes from the region of Yei, in the South of the country, some 150 km off the capital Juba and near the borders with the Democratic Republic of the Congo and with Uganda. The name “Suluja ti South Sudan” means “beginning of South Sudan” in the dialect of the Kakwa tribes, which dwell in most of the coffee-producing areas.
Besides the actual product, Nespresso and TecnhoServe developed a local labor force. The company currently works with 500 producers, a number set to increase in years to come. The Swiss company claims the country has the potential to produce Arabica- and Robusta-type coffee, and plans on doing so in order to bring income and development to farmers.
Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
