Cameroon Pilot Project on “Washed Coffee” 2012-2015

Rationale: Officially titled “Pilot project to establish four centres of excellence for the valorization of coffee produced in Cameroon” (otherwise also known as “Washed Coffee” Project), this initiative was mounted to address some major weaknesses that had been identified in the Cameroon Coffee Sector Development Strategy adopted in 2010 by sector stakeholders to reinvigorate coffee production. As can be seen in the project fact sheet presented in table 2 below, this pilot project sought to introduce technological innovations and upgrade practices in the coffee sector that would increase farm productivity and the quality of the final product ready for export. In this way, the project hoped to align the quality of Cameroon coffee with quality standards ruling in global coffee niche markets where prices reward high product grade. To that end the project opted for cutting-edge technological innovation in post-harvest coffee processing. 

Coffee pulping machines: The technology of “washed coffee” (or the wet processing method using pulping machines and washing stations) introduced by the project was, without doubt, the most structural and far-reaching innovation witnessed by Robusta coffee farmers. This is because, unlike conventional Arabica coffee processing methods, the Robusta variety had never before been processed in Cameroon using this wet method.  The project designers reasoned that a traditional coffee washing system required considerable investment, used large volumes of water and needed to be supplied with large quantities of fresh cherries to operate profitably.  By contrast, modern washing stations of smaller size, called Central Pulping or Processing Units (CPUs), which have already been tested widely and successfully in East Africa for example, were deemed to be economically viable with the supply of small quantities of cherry due to their lower investment costs. The units also have the ecological advantage of using less than 20% of the water needed by a conventional coffee washing station. With these and other advantages considered, the project executing agencies (Centre for Agricultural Bioscience International or CABI, based in Kenya, and Café Africa, based in Switzerland) estimated a 20% to 30% increase in the value of the finished product. The selected pulping machines, imported from Columbia, were installed in the four pilot centres where washing stations were also built.

Business centres of excellence: A CPU Management Committee established at each of the four pilot project sites was to function as a coffee business centre, providing key services to the farmers within  the CPU’s operational radius, such as purchase of cherries for delivery to CPUs, basic agricultural extension services, supply of farm inputs; provision of farm credit, etc. The goal was to build bonds of loyalty and mutual dependence between the CPU business centres and the farmers served by the centres such that farmers would be motivated and rewarded to increase farm productivity and output. Being a trial exercise, the project had to demonstrate its technological suitability, economic viability, and financial profitability both for the farmers and the business centres before its extension beyond the pilot phase could be considered.

Table 1: Fact Sheet on the Pilot Project to establish Four Centres of Excellence for the Valorization of Coffee Produced in Cameroon

Intra-governmental synergies: The requirement in the project design for synchronized interventions of the different government services expected to support the business centres and the farmers served by these centres was another ground-breaking innovation of the project, in light of the institutional fragmentation characterizing the governance of the cocoa and coffee sectors. As such, the project aimed to serve as a model of intra-governmental coordination and cooperation at field and project levels, unlike what prevails at national level.

Implementation:  There is every indication that the farmers concerned at the four pilot sites received this project with great enthusiasm and gratitude to the government. At least that’s what happened in Muambong, Kupe Muanenguba Division in the South West Region, where coffee farmers rushing from far and wide flocked and danced with excitement at project site, expressing admiration for the new technological marvel the project had brought right to their doorstep. They instantly took emotional ownership of the project and their participation in the pilot phase was as vigorous as flawless. But there were serious constraints. Firstly, the intra-governmental synergies factored into project design failed to materialize. At the Muambong site, for example, only an uncompleted produce warehouse financed by PA3C/FODECC was built. Secondly, the project design and budget had somehow omitted financial allocations for the purchase of cherries supplied by the farmers for processing in the CPUs. Thirdly, the labour-intensive requirement to harvest only fully ripe red cherries for the CPUs to function efficiently had not properly been taken into account in project strategy in a village context where labour is increasingly rare and costly for farm households. Fourthly and even more crucial, the project’s architects did not make adequate arrangements to bolt the market-end of the pilot output. Considering that major coffee buyers and exporters in Cameroon at the time of the project had little or no knowledge about the unique quality and price level of washed Robusta coffee, the project would have gained immensely by partnering with the major players in the global specialty coffee market. Such a producer-importer twinning device would have been decisive for the predictable and profitable extension of the project beyond its pilot phase. This marketing failure of the project was all the more resounding as it was the primary negligence of the International Trade Center, which had not only championed the project in the first place but also boasts of a solid database on the world coffee market. With the benefit of hindsight, these challenges to project implementation stemmed mostly from the fact that the project strategy and budget had not been enlightened by a prior feasibility study or ground situation analysis so as to pinpoint strengths and weaknesses at the level of farmers and their cooperatives, on the one hand, and build strategic and enduring linkages between the project and the global specialty coffee market, on the other, such as enjoyed by East African producers of the same coffee quality standard the project had the objective to promote in Cameroon.

Outcome: This unprecedented innovation in the post-harvest treatment of Robusta coffee (washing instead of drying) was sadly not extended beyond its pilot phase that ended in 2012. The sudden death of the project left the farmers underwhelmed to see their fulsome expectations go down in flames. By our assessment, this flop was due to the complete failure of the marketing end of the value chain. The main lesson here is that the project, like the coffee revival strategy before it, were externally induced and financed initiatives (ITC; World Bank; EU; etc) that did not seem to have been fully ingested and appropriated by relevant government ministries (MINADER, MINCOMMERCE, MINEPAT, MINRESI) or other stakeholders in the national coffee value chain.  As a result, the project funds amounting to upwards of 900 million FCFA simply evaporated into thin air, exactly like the 24 billion FCFA that had been earmarked for the coffee revival strategy, which also flopped miserably. In both cases, coffee farmers were confounded by an elephant of expectations that finally gave birth to little less than a mouse. The question then is whether the government has a plan of its own to resurrect Cameroon’s vanishing coffee sector.