Just outside Wegida village, located in Yirgacheffe county, Tsehay Kabtamu and her husband Geremew Dambi run a small, 2.79 hectare farm producing their own natural process coffee. Tsehay manages production of the coffee collected from her family’s trees, and Geremew provides training on the cultivation of organic coffee as a local agronomist with the Yirgacheffe Agricultural Board. Their farm is best described as garden-style farming, interweaving coffee trees with food crops such as enset and taro, which are staples for the subsistence farming common in the area.
During a visit in late 2022, we spent a lot of time with Geremew visiting Jabanto members’ farms, witnessing his intense enthusiasm for sharing knowledge about organic farming. Geremew was the only one of his siblings to inherit a small portion of land from his parents, who were part of a multigenerational coffee-farming family. When he’s not helping his wife on the family farm, Geremew is busy advising other Jabanto members on best practices, even facilitating the entire Jabanto group’s organic certification. Geremew’s contribution to coffee production and productivity improvement for not only Jabanto, but the region in general, is significant.
The Jabanto farmers group was formed in 2018 after policy changes by the Ethiopian government made it possible for smallholder farmers to directly market their coffees to buyers. Working with our partner GBroad Trading, who facilitates critical exporting tasks like arranging milling, logistics and documentation, the group has grown to more than 70 members in Yirgacheffe county. Leveraging members’ skills such as Geremew’s has been a critical part of the group’s success. This is the first year we had the opportunity to taste the Kabtamu family’s coffee, and while the exceptional quality warranted selling this lot individually, it’s important to acknowledge that this unique separation is the result of many small families, like the Kabtamus, joining together and sharing knowledge and resources for the benefit of all.
