Augustin Ndateba – Low O2 Natural

About Ngoma Station, Baho Coffee, and Augustin Ndateba:

Nagoma is one of seven washing stations owned by Baho Coffee and Emmanuel Rusatira. After 20 years of managing stations for a large export company in Rwanda, Emmanuel and his family began purchasing their own stations throughout Rwanda to grow in their vision of focusing on quality protocols and to also to benefit the economic livelihood of smallholder farmers in the area through education, outreach and payments for cherry well above mandated governmental farmgate prices (including a secondary bonus payment). There is not much information about Augustine Ndateba from this harvest, however we think this level of detailed traceability is very cool! And, in Emmanuel’s words:

Since these are new group that are forming around our cws [coffee washing station], based on on what we think might be potential or unique in the zone, we are want make this model mutual benefit where farmers commit to what we are training them, commit to long and honest / loyal relationship with Baho and of course by focusing on both coffee quality and quantity. Then at the other side, Baho have responsibility of developing them, buying their cherries, marketing their coffee with full traceability and at the end, paying them highest possible price that will make them motivated and happy to grow coffee. we strongly believe that our strength is based on happy farmers that we work with.

About the Process:

Cherries are carefully sorted under shade, and then undergo multiple rounds of floating where the densest cherries, or sinkers, are then selected for this higher grade lot. From there, they are tightly packed into sealed plastic tanks where they are left to ferment in a limited oxygen environment for a period of 72 hours. Once this fermentation process is complete, cherries are turned out onto raised drying beds in a single layer and rotated frequently. At 20% moisture content, the cherries are covered with mesh netting for a period of 5 days before being opened again to full sun. At 15% moisture content the cherries are moved under complete shade for a period of 5 days before being opened again to the full sun. When the moisture content reaches the target 10.5 – 11%, the drying phase is considered complete, and the dried cherries are bagged and stored in a dry warehouse at Ngoma until time for milling. The total drying time for this coffee is 80 days.

Price Transparency:

2021 Rwanda national farmgate* price: 245 rwf/kg (increase from 216 rwf/kg in 2020)
2021 Baho average farmgate price, paid at Ngoma: 400 rwf/kg (increase from 350 rwf/kg in 2020) + 20 rwf/kg second payment
2021 FOT* Kigali price, paid to Baho Coffee for Ngoma Low O2 Natural: 4.69 usd/lb (increase from 4.63 usd/lb in 2020)
Price Shuv paid to Sundog Trading: 6.56 usd/lb

*Farmgate – price paid directly to the farmer
*Free-On-Board (FOB) – the price of coffee at export. This includes the price paid to the farmer, transporting, warehousing, milling costs, as well as exporting fees, etc.
*Free-On-Truck (FOT) – the cost of packing, loading, transportation, etc. of goods to a delivery point.