The Coffee Project in Gorongosa National Park – is a large-scale Agroforestry initiative with socio-economic and environmental benefits that has been supporting many families living around the Park, providing jobs and creating a shared vision for conservation biodiversity and sustainable use of natural resources.
Every year, the harvest of coffee beans in Gorongosa has been carried out between the months of April and September, and to carry out this activity the Project has the support of more than 100 workers, both men and women.
It should be noted that in recent years there has been a significant growth in coffee production. The Project started in 2013, having the first harvest occurring in 2018 with about 6 tons of green coffee, having grown to 8 tons in 2019 and to 12 in 2020. With these results, it is expected for this year of 2021 a harvest of 19 tons of green coffee.
Currently, the Project works with more than 800 local farmers and a considerable part of these already harvest coffee in their own fields. For the expansion of production fields, the Coffee Project guarantees the supply of coffee seeds and seedlings for them.
Seriano Semente and Tereselia Faria are examples of farmers who saw their lives improve thanks to the Coffee Project. They produce coffee in their own farms and sell their beans to the Park and with the money they earn they manage to buy notebooks and other school materials for their children to study and thus fight for a better future.
It should be noted that the Gorongosa Coffee Project has also been training several technicians, especially local young people, to support the monitoring of coffee production, harvesting and processing, in order to guarantee its quality for the national and international markets.