Ankole Coffee Producers Cooperative Union (ACPCU)
The challenge
Smallholder farmers in Uganda are unable to make a decent living from their produce, due to a lack of technical expertise and inadequate access to international markets.
The innovation
ACPCU is a cooperative made up of 21 primary co-operative societies whose membership comprise coffee farmers, with the need to control their own coffee from growing, processing and export. They transform the lives and livelihoods of rural coffee farmers socially and economically by enabling them to take ownership of the coffee value chain in the international market.
The impact
ACPCU provides a ready lucrative market for more than 12,000 smallholder farmers in Western Uganda, whose average annual earning is $503 per farmer from ACPCU purchases, as compared to an average of $350 per farmer from other coffee farmers outside of ACPCU.
