Rambagira Kawa Women

This coffee comes from the Mbilima washing station, located at 2,020 masl. in the hills of Mbilima.

Musasa Dukunde Kawa operates four washing stations across north-western Rwanda. Most producers own less than a quarter of a hectare, tending around 250–300 coffee trees alongside other crops such as maize and beans. Smallholders combine their harvests to colelctively process the cherries centrally at the washing station, this way farmers are able to access the specialty market and achieve significantly higher returns.

The cooperative’s success is closely linked to its participation in the PEARL programme and its successor, SPREAD programme, which helped transform Rwanda’s coffee sector from a focus on quantity to quality. Today, producers working with Musasa Dukunde Kawa have seen their incomes at least double, and the cooperative consistently produces exceptional specialty lots.

At Mbilima, small but skillfully managed farms thrive due to diverse shade trees such as Maesopsis eminii, Calliandra, Leucaena, Polycias, and Grevillea. As climate change brings rising temperatures and increasingly irregular rainfall, the cooperative continues to support producers through training in climate adaptation, soil conservation, and access to new coffee varieties better suited to these changing conditions.