A loan helped to enable coffee farmers in Uganda to double their income by keeping ownership of their coffee along the value chain.


Nucafe's story

Smallholder coffee farmers in Uganda are forced to sell unprocessed coffee to middlemen at less than 5% of the retail value. They do not have financing or resources to add value to their coffee beans. Over 10 million smallholder coffee farmers stay in a vicious cycle of poverty over generations due to this issue.

NUCAFE, the National Union of Coffee Agribusinesses and Farm Enterprises, is a coffee farmers association founded in 1995. NUCAFE uses a "Farmer Ownership Model" whereby ownership of the coffee remains with the farmers and they are able to use NUCAFE’s processing facilities (for cleaning, drying, grading, roasting, grinding and packaging services) to add value to their coffee beans. This enables farmers to sell their coffee at a much higher price.

NUCAFE counts over 200 member cooperatives and more than 1.5M individual smallholder coffee farmers. NUCAFE also helps farmer cooperatives sell their produce by marketing their coffee to potential buyers. Members pay a service fee to NUCAFE for using their processing facility and marketing their coffee.

The loan will enable NUCAFE to make advance payments to farmers and stabilize cash flows even while buyers have stopped paying in advance due to COVID-19. This is the fourth Kiva loan to NUCAFE. View NUCAFE’s previous three loans here, here and here.


This loan is special because:

it helps coffee farmers in Uganda get better prices for their coffee



Loan details


Lenders and lending teams




Loan details