An Overview Of Our Solution
The current coffee post-harvesting is not suitable in many targeted areas given water availability limitation and a lot of waste water discharged, hence damaging the ecosystem.
Our solution is to introduce an alternative processing method and innovative bio-solar drying facility to support coffee agroforestry. The method we offer could reduce water usage, thus also mitigating waste water while also reducing the required labor. The drying facility could significantly improve the bean quality and protect the beans. Our proposed solution synergizes adaptation and mitigation activities to create a prototype climate resilient coffee farming community.
Who is this solution impacting?
Community Type
Rural
Additional Information
- Population Impacted:
- Continent: Oceania
General Information
Organization type
Perusahaan
Ecosystem (select all that apply)
Forests
Population impacted
1100 people
Challenge
Size of agricultural area
900 ha
Production quantity
6000 kg
People employed
200 people
Solution
Describe your solution
Our solution is to introduce an alternative processing method to support coffee agroforestry. The method, known as natural processing, places harvested cherries immediately into drying facilities, then the dry mucilage and hull are removed producing slightly fermented green beans. The significant difference between full-wash and natural process is that natural uses almost no water green bean coffee, saving over 20m3 of water per ton of coffee and mitigating pollution.
We propose to address the lack of available infrastructure by building innovative bio-solar-drying facility for the farmers’ to improve and protect the beans from uncontrollable factors such as weather, humidity, insects, and animals which could compromise an entire harvest. The bio-solar-drier also maintains the coffee drying process with stable temperature and humidity even in the wet season. The bio-solar-drying facility mainly absorbs heat from direct sunlight but also could utilize heating system from biogas, which su-re.co has been successfully developing. Therefore, it is not totally weather dependent. Another advantage of building a bio-solar-drying facility is that farmers can utilize it for other commodities year-round and one of the reasons why an innovation is socially accepted is the diversification of its uses or services (Soriano & Aguirre, 2005).
Implementation
Describe your implementation
First part of our solution is to introduce the farmers to the natural post-harvesting method. Addressing the first part of our solution, according to Reisenberg (1989) farmers prefer interpersonal methods of receiving information on new or innovative farming practices as opposed to mass dissemination method, our solution would be resolved around providing interpersonal assistance. Below are the detailed specific activities:
1. Local extension workers training
With our ongoing collaboration with the government and agricultural experts, we would provide a well-documented training for a representative of each farmers group which would be acting as “Champion” and local extension workers in the future. Utilizing the Champion is important to ensure the introduction of new system and to encourage a change (Buckley, et al. 2013). Other than the post-harvesting method they would also be trained to maintain and utilize the bio-solar drying facility and agroforestry. The idea of providing local extension workers is to create a sustainable implementation of our solution and the fact that the farmers are used to work as a group act as an enabling condition.
2. International standard certification preparation
To be able to create a sustainable environment for the whole village, an international certification is the next step. We would act as an overseer to prepare the farmers with the local extension worker as the focal point so that they would be able to get certified for example by UTZ.
Our second part of solution would be building the bio-solar-drier to significantly improve the post-harvesting quality. It is possible to build and to operate it locally with obtainable materials, and the knowledge of the farmers. The technology has, therefore, would be accepted and adopted. The facility would be handed over to the village official and put under their responsibilities with farmers’ group utilizing the facility.
External connections
1. UN Agencies
Our team su-re.co, currently works with multiple UN agencies including UNIDO and UNDP for a global climate fund feasibility study improving stakeholder farmers’ livelihood as the goal, so that our solution could act as a pilot for scaling out and up and presented worldwide.
2. Government of Indonesia
With our ongoing work with Ministry of Agriculture, Indonesia Coffee & Cacao Research Institute (ICCRI), and Indonesia Climate Change Trust Fund (ICCTF) which is the one main focal point of the country development in agricultural and climate sector respectively.
3. Research Institute and Consortium
Our team has also members of Stockholm Environment Institute and EC Green-Win project consortium as well as other international projects.
4. Financial Institute/Bank
Previously, our team successfully initiate a tailor-made finance program for cacao farmers and through one of the UN Agencies we are working on for coffee farmers’ financial support scheme.
5. Private Sector
With our experiences working with private sector on Cacao, we would also connect this solution and prepare the farmers to engage with private sector not only for marketing purpose but also to provide investment.
Results
What is the environmental or ecological challenge you are targeting with your solution?
According to a vulnerability assessment done by su-re.co (2016) the province of East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia is facing increasing drought conditions: a reduced amount of rainfall and increase in maximum temperature. Shown in Figure 1 is the projection of precipitation in each regency in East Nusa Tenggara on Representative Concentration Pathway 4.5 and 8.5 Middle Future (2040 – 2069) scenario. The trend shows a decline in the amount of precipitation compared to the baseline data. Specifically, Ende regency, our targeted area shows a relatively low precipitation compared to the other regencies and it is going to be decreased even more. Shown in the vulnerability assessment map (Figure 2), compared to Ngada, another coffee-producing regency, Ende is getting worse. The agricultural sector with coffee in particular are sensitive to climate change, without any adaptation plan the province is highly vulnerable.
Describe the context in which you are operating
Smallholder farmers are particularly vulnerable to any climate change shocks because of their high dependence on agriculture for their livelihoods, chronic food insecurity, physical isolation, and lack of access to formal safety net. Our targeted community is thus vulnerable to impending drought. 90% of adult villagers in Golulada are smallholder farmers, working in groups. A single impacted farm can affect several families and the village lacks the basic infrastructure and training to sustainably deal with the post-harvesting. As the region becomes too dry for traditional staple crops, we recognize the need for a transition to commodity crops to secure income and nutrition. The main village income is from Arabica coffee with agroforestry as secondary income and food source. However, the current post-harvesting method is not suitable given water availability limitation. Known as full-wash, this method ferments and washes fruit mucilage from coffee beans in large pools of water, then discharges the waste water into open soil or watersheds. The water requirement is approximately 25 m3/ton of coffee. Furthermore, the acidity of coffee wastewater is below pH 4.
How did you impact natural resource use and greenhouse gas emissions?
Our solution mainly providing three benefits for the environment. First, by providing training and infrastructure to change the post processing method of coffee we are decreasing water usage by 20 m3/ton of coffee. This is also directly eliminating the waste water of washing coffee, protecting the ground water from pollution which before the waste water were washed into the soil. Coffee wastewater effluent have around between 8000 and 20000 mg/l of Biological Oxygen Demand which mean a ton of coffee is producing waste water equivalent of daily pollution load of approximately 2000 people’s domestic sewage output (von Enden, et al. 2002). Second, the natural processing requires less activities allowing the farmers to work other crops. Water and working time saved by natural processing will be utilized by the agroforestry system, which consequently keeping the biodiversity and food source/secondary income. Lastly, biodiversity could also be gained by properly certified coffee as certified agriculture uses only environmental friendly practices. To conclude, our solution provides the farmers and environment positive impacts while still providing them with financial benefits.
Language(s)
Which language(s) are spoken in the area where your solution is implemented?
Water
The switch of the post-harvesting method from the full-washed to the natural method eliminates 25 m3 of water per ton of coffee produced. This is also eliminating the same amount of waste water produced by the required process of the full-washed method. The characteristics of waste water from coffee processing is a BOD of up to 20000 mg/l and it should be reduced to 200 mg/l before washed into natural waterways (von Enden et al., 2002).
Food Security/Nutrition
Being able to work on other crops also mean the farmers could work also on staple crops such as rice paddy and corn, which are their main source of food. Also, the barter trading system is still applied within the community so they would also be able to trade other produced crops which were supposedly increased. Hence, by decreasing the workload of the farmers our solution also protects the farmers’ food security and nutritional needs. Furthermore, the presence of the green house could also be u
Economic/Sustainable Development
Reducing the water usage eliminates the needs of people to buy extra amount of water. With drought episode is unpredictable, people could possibly not meet the required amount of water to process the coffee. With average income of under $20/month and total production of 6 ton/year, we potentially saved water up to 150 m3/year which is equivalent of $1100. The minimum price for certified Arabica coffee is almost $2/kg over the previous price. Bio-solar-drier also create the opportunity for the fa
Climate
Saving water and reducing waste water is a part of climate adaptation which is directly helping the climate change issues. With the high reliance on agricultural sector, facing a decreasing amount of rainfall and increasing maximum temperature in RCP 4.5 scenario (su-re.co, 2017) the whole province of East Nusa Tenggara would be in a vulnerable state. Providing transformative adaptation in changing the post-harvesting of coffee would send the farmers a step ahead of problems as the government is
Sustainability
The premise of this project is to overcome climate change vulnerability using market forces, namely adding value to commodities in a more sustainable way. Facilitating agroforestry will provide diverse income for the farmers thus increasing farmer resilience to market fluctuations. As coffee is the second-most traded commodity after crude oil the demand for coffee is not likely to subside, so connecting farmers to the international market under fair conditions will carry our solution into the future. Furthermore, in more recent years naturally processed coffee has surpassed full-wash beans in price.
Return on investment
Divided into two parts of our plan we believe that we need approximately $10000 to build two 1000 kg bio-solar-drying facilities and $8000 for post-harvesting training and maintenance program. Other than that, we also need approximately $5000 for the certification procedures. The current global average producer price of green-bean coffee is roughly $4000/ton (FAOSTAT, 2015), thus returns will be almost immediate. Furthermore, the bio-slurry discharged by the biogas digester is also a good organic fertilizer, hence it could be used to increase the quality of the agroforestry system or could be sold separately.
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Replication and Scale
How could we successfully replicate this solution elsewhere?
Our solution is replicable in any other coffee growing community should it face similar environmental and social issues. Although not yet widespread, natural coffee processing has been proven successful from smallholder to commercial scale. Locally, the champion model of endowing environmentally proactive farmers with lucrative market opportunities should encourage adjacent communities to shift as well. Funding for replication will only be required for building bio-solar dryers and extension worker support. The bio-solar dryer design can be replicated with local materials, and adjusted to fit a wide range of commodities which also require drying. We implemented the same approach before in cacao in North Sulawesi and in smaller scale of coffee plantation in West Bali, Indonesia.We will cooperate with national and local government with the help of international research institutes.