How the Cocagi Cooperative Works, and Where Your Cup Fits In
80% of the world's coffee farmers live below the poverty line. Most of them grow coffee on small plots and sell on their own, with very little say in the price they're paid. A cooperative changes that. And in West Rwanda, a cooperative of women is showing just how much it can change.
What a coffee cooperative actually does
A coffee cooperative is a group of growers who work together instead of alone. They pool their harvests, share processing, learn from each other and sell as one. That gives them scale, a stronger position when it comes to price, and access to training and resources a single smallholder could never fund on their own.
It also gives them a voice. Decisions about the land, the crop and the money are made by the people doing the work.
Meet Cocagi
Cocagi, the Cooperative des Cafeiculteurs de Gishoma, is a women-led coffee farmer cooperative in West Rwanda with more than 1,100 members. It's led by Anne-Marie, and it matters for a simple reason. In this region, women rarely hold land or own a business. At Cocagi, they do both.
You can meet some of the women behind the cooperative on the blog, including Dafrose, a Cocagi Femme coffee grower.
What St Remio funds, and why it's an investment
St Remio has funded projects in Rwanda every year since 2017, and Cocagi has been our long-term partner since 2019. This has never been a one-off donation. It's a long-term investment in growers, built to give the cooperative real assets and a commercially strong future in coffee.
- Land. St Remio has funded 8 hectares of land for Cocagi, just under 20 acres. Land the women own, which gives them security and commercial viability.
- Trees. In 2019/20 we funded 12,000 coffee plants, plus sunflower, tree tomato, passionfruit and avocado seedlings so the women could earn while the coffee established.
- Patience. New coffee land takes three years before it can be harvested. In 2021/22, the women of Cocagi brought in their first harvest from those 2019 seedlings.
- Expertise. We fund agronomists to work alongside the farmers, including Patricia. Today two agronomists are funded to support the cooperative.
- Training. Farmers have learned intercropping to prevent erosion, crop diversification to spread their income, and sunflower oil production to sell at local markets.
- Healthy land. Ongoing funding covers compost, organic manure, mulching and shade trees, which protect the soil and give the farmers another source of income.
The ripple effect
A healthy plantation needs more hands than the members alone. St Remio funds the seasonal workers the land needs, and that work flows straight back into the surrounding community. To date, the Cocagi project has provided an additional 16,000+ people with work.
It started even earlier, too. Before Cocagi, we funded a cupping lab for the women of the TUK cooperative so farmers could taste and understand their own coffee. Read why we taught farmers to taste their own coffee.
Where your cup fits in
This is the part we love most. The women of Cocagi grow coffee. St Remio roasts and brings coffee to you. You enjoy it, and what you spend goes back to grow their land, fund their agronomists and train the next season of farmers. It's your coffee full circle.
You don't have to do anything differently. Just keep choosing the coffee you love, and know where it goes. That's how you be the impact.
See every project your coffee has funded, or shop St Remio coffee beans and keep the circle turning.
