Bolaven Farms Crop Share Training Program
Project Description
Bolaven Farms is a fully integrated coffee business with a mission of bettering the lives of farmers on the Bolaven Plateau in southern Laos. Bolaven Farms provides a two-year crop-share training program to 33 agrarian families where farmers plot 7,500 coffee trees and receive on-the-job training, plus a generous crop-share of 36 percent. Following the completion of their first year in the program, farmers buy land and qualify to stay on for a second year, ensuring coffee seedlings are planted during the wet season.
Bolaven Farms also serves as the unofficial cooperative processor for coffee villages. Instead of farmers drying coffee cherries poorly, which results in average tasting coffee, Bolaven Farms buys coffee cherries equivalent to green coffee price, essentially performing the task of processing coffee free of charge. Bolaven Farms also stands in as the extension agronomist for the villages throughout the year to transfer technical know-how and training in best farming practices.
Benefits
Bolaven Farms works with smallholder farmers, empowering their individual rights and providing a pathway to independence. The coffee company firmly believes that farmers should be rewarded with dignified and living payments for their crops. Bolaven Farms, through its crop-share program and unique empowerment model, introduces proven technologies to improve productivity, economics and overall well-being for the farming communities.
Readers can help by
To learn more about Bolaven Farms, visit its website at www.BolavenFarms.com. Readers can help bolster the impact of its crop-share program by encouraging their favorite quick-serve restaurant or fast, casual restaurant to carry Bolaven Farms coffee. Restaurants can contact Bolaven Farms through its website or by emailing info@bolavenfarms.com
Project Contact:
Sam Say
Email:
Sam@BolavenFarms.com
Phone:
(852) 2898 0398
Project URL:
www.BolavenFarms.com
Location:
Laos, Bolaven Plateau in southern Laos
Project Impact:
By sowing seeds of hope, Bolaven Farms provides tangible opportunity for farmers through its crop-share training program. Through the program, impoverished farmers are provided attainable avenues to a better life. Meanwhile, the impact is seen in higher productivity; improved cup quality; and hope for a better, sustainable future for the members of the farming communities.
