Sustainable Coffee Agribusiness

Aqdar Maskur, founder and executive director, has strong background and interest on food security, climate change, social entrepreneurship and Small Medium Enterprise (SME) development. Working at grass root level, he used to work as field facilitator for agriculture-based company, consultant for his  agriculture-based Business Development Service (BDS) provider, consultant on agriculture and SME development, and NGO worker on environmental issues. While working as part time English teacher, in 2005 he initiated his first BDS provider facilitating Access to Finance (A2F), Access to Market (A2M) and Access to Technology (A2T) for smallholder maize farmers partnering with world bank’s project. To transform the BDS work into social enterprise, he established Ritma Green in 2013 where as the director, he’s in charge for business development particularly funding and investor relations together with customer acquisition. He had  received some fellowships for short courses  abroad covering topics like climate change, agri-entrepreneurship, and community development.

Climate change is putting coffee production and the livelihoods of farmers and their families globally at risk. Meanwhile,  Indonesia is predicted to stop exporting coffee in 2035 since local production can only meet domestic consumption. This project implements integrated solutions at on-farm and off-farm levels with social, economic, and environmental interventions. To improve farm’s resilience, climate-tolerant seedlings and shade trees are promoted to apply agroforestry system. Furthermore, soil nutrient is improved through “rorak” while biogas byproduct (bioslurry) is to fertilize the crops. As the biogas produces domestic renewable energy for cooking and lighting, solution also promotes solar dryer dome to dry coffee with low-carbon technology. Ultimately, the solution facilitates marketing of the farmers’ coffee products not only to improve their livelihoods but also to enable them to reinvest in climate-smart technologies. The project elevates humanity by improving farmers’ livelihoods, farming knowledge, and  agribusiness skills.

Climate change is putting coffee production and the livelihoods of coffee farmers and their families around the world at risk. The increasing of extreme climate events such as drought due to El Niño causes a decline in national coffee production to 10%. Meanwhile the longer wet season due to La Niña caused the decreased production to 80%. Indirect impacts due to rising temperatures are increased incidence of coffee borer and leaf rust disease which can lead to a 50% decline on production. Becoming, the victim of climate change impact financially, socially and environmentally, the smallholder coffee farmers still lack of awareness, knowledge, and fund to cope it. Around 25 million small producers rely on coffee for a living worldwide.  Meanwhile, The third coffee producer, Indonesia has an estimated total of 1,340,000 hectares where 95%  is cultivated by 2.33 million smallholders while In West Sulawesi province and South Sulawesi province where the solution takes place, there’re about 150,000 smallholder coffee farmers. According to census 2017 (INDEF) the average annual income of farmers in Indonesia was IDR 12.4 millions or $2.5 per day which refer to World Bank poverty lines mostly belong to lower income and lower middle income.

Carrying out integrated solution both on-farm and off-farm with social, economic, and environmental interventions, The innovation is implemented through farmer training, education, and advocacy as well as introduction and facilitation of climate change adaptation and mitigation technologies and practices. At on-farm level, climate-tolerant seedlings are promoted together with shade trees to apply agroforestry system. Furthermore, soil nutrient is improved through “rorak” which is a hole to store soil nutrients and green manures utilization to fertilize the crop which is promoted through integrated farming with livestock like cattle and goats. The shade tree is to reduce coffee exposure to sunlight and to provide feed for the livestock. The important component for this  integrated farming is biogas technology generated by animal dungs for domestic cooking and lighting prior to its utilization as organic fertilizer for coffee crops. To dry coffee beans, solar dryer dome - a low carbon technology is promoted. Ultimately, the innovation also shortens supply chains for green beans’ marketing and adds value to green beans produced to be roasted coffee and ground coffee  encourage farmers to maintain their coffee crops and to improve their  financial capacity to reinvest for package of coffee adaptation and mitigation technologies. 

Serving smallholder farmers, my social enterprise, Ritma Green, was established in 2013 with domestic biogas as the main business while its integration to coffee business began in 2018 to solve to classic problems for small scale renewable energy deployment - upfront cost and poor maintenance. Its team members were former NGO workers having long experiences to engage in with such population. The extensive working with smallholder farmers enables us to understand their needs and formulate solution with a more sustainable way (social entrepreneurship) - not simply project approach.  The integrated solutions implemented are to grant positive economic, social, and environmental impacts. Economic impacts come from reduction on domestic energy and farm chemicals expenses.  The climate smart technologies also improve their coffee farms’ resilience and productivity which in turn increases their incomes. Domestic financial literacy together with micro-insurance and deposit for health and education (https://.bungkesmas.org) are also to improve farmers’ livelihoods. The solution also builds capacity of local organizations like farmer groups, farmer cooperative, and village-owned enterprises on organizational management and business development. Ultimately, Profits obtained from value addition and supply chain shortening will not only serve them better margin  but also enable them  to  reinvest to climate-smart technologies. 

The solution builds awareness and drives action to solve two most pressing problems nowadays - food security and energy security due to climate change. It promotes sustainable food system by facilitating coffee climate smart technologies and practices for smallholder farmers - a group who traditionally left behind. Furthermore, biogas is to promote the group’s energy security. The technologies and practices are urgent to deploy considering the continuous decreasing in global coffee production while Conservation International indicates demand for coffee could triple by 2050. Solution also changes behaviors of producers and customers to meet sustainable coffee production and consumption.

Most my professional careers since 1999 relate to smallholder farming, community empowerment, environmental preservation, and agriculture-based Small Medium Enterprise (SME) development. Intensive working with smallholder farmers enables me to understand the paradox  on their farming practices. Living in poverty due to limited resources owned, they also waste natural resources, time, money, and energy due to lack of awareness and access to Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) and Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA). To solve the problems, In 2010 I initiated a project entitled bankable integrated farming which promoted zero waste or circular economy model integrating maize and cow. Later selected as British Council Indonesia’s climate champion 2000, the project utilized maize cob and stem as cattle feed while the cow dung is processed to be biogas not only for domestic energy source but also for fertilizing the crops. In 2013, I established my social enterprise working on the domestic biogas business. Five years later, I developed a business model integrating biogas with coffee agribusiness to solve two classic problems on renewable energy deployment - high upfront cost and poor maintenance. Coffee is selected since the market is more appreciable to sustainable farming practices and willing to pay higher.

Having strong work experiences on agriculture and community development, I found some paradox on smallholder farmers’ practices. Mostly live in poverty with limited natural resources owned,  ironically, they waste the resources significantly. Their over-application of chemicals, for example, does not only waste money and time but also reduce their farms’ productivity and contribute to greenhouse gas emission. Most farming waste is abandoned or even burnt which actually with simple technologies could be processed to be organic fertilizer, renewable energy, livestock feed and so on. Furthermore, climate change makes the situation even worse impacting the farmers’ livelihoods. Finding the paradox and serious threats of climate change, I decide to focus on assisting the smallholder farmers to optimize their limited natural resources and adapt and mitigate to climate change. Being passionate to sustainable agriculture and climate change issues, I always try to raise their awareness on the issues together with introducing and facilitating environmentally-friendly technologies and practices like biogas. With social entrepreneurship principles, I establish my company working on food security, renewable energy, and water management with integrated solutions - Access to Technology (A2T), Access to Market (A2M), and Access to Finance (A2F) together with policy advocacy.

My professional experiences, personal interests, and educational backgrounds make me well-positioned to deliver the project. My professional backgrounds on agriculture and community development since 1999 enable me to understand smallholder farmers’ problems under economic, social, and environmental perspectives and how they are affecting each other.   Moreover, I used to work for as field assistant of agriculture - based company, NGO worker,  community development consultant, and agricultural entrepreneur allowing to accommodate various aspects in formulating a project and developing a social enterprise to replicate, scale up and sustain the works. Furthermore, my strong interests on environmental  and entrepreneurship issues drive me to find economic approaches for conservation works or to make markets work for the poor. For this topics, I used to have  two-weeks training for each. Training on Making Market Work for the Poor (M4P) held by Springfield Center, in Bangkok-Thailand-2015 and Economic Tools for Conservation & Policy held by Conservation Strategy Fund in Bali-2019. Meanwhile, my interest on environmental and climate change issues granted some fellowships to attend training on National Project Management and Leadership for Climate Change, held by British Council in Jakarta-2010,   Asia-Pacific Environment Forum in Korea-2018 and International Course on Crop-Livestock-Environment Interaction in a Changing world in The Philippines-2012. My formal education in forestry together with the above training has equipped me with skills and knowledge to deliver a project or run a social enterprise on climate change adaptation and mitigation with market approach.

Deciding that biogas is an appropriate technology  for smallholder farmers, I have to overcome adversity for its deployment. In 2010, I began to search for types of biogas to introduce and facilitate where then I got information about Indonesia Domestic Biogas Programme (www.biru.or.id). a year later, after convincing my NGO friends, I through the NGO - Yapensa (www.yapensa.or,id) - became a constructing partner organization (CPO) for 2 districts in my province. Under the partnership, a CPO would receive construction fee around 10-15% from the total construction cost. During 2011 - 2013, BIRU only promoted almost fully commercial biogas where the users should pay 80% of the cost. It was adverse times for all CPOs since customer acquisition cost is higher than the construction fees to get. As a result NGO was the only didn’t quit. Then BIRU staff and I tried to convince government to provide funding for biogas. In 2013 provincial government approved 5 years funding. Responding to the opportunity I established my social enterprise, Ritma Green, at the same year. Following the completion of funding period, I develop a new business model integrated  with  coffee agribusiness to sustain my commitment to deploy biogas for smallholder farmers. 

My leadership ability on climate change adaptation and mitigation works initially demonstrated when selected as  British Council Indonesia’s climate champion 2010 where I should take part on series of training entitled national project management and leadership for climate change. As a champion, I received seed grant to initiate a project called bankable integrated farming where biogas construction facilitation is a vital component. My collaborative leadership style enables me to attract resources and supports to facilitate construction of almost 300 biogas digesters. Later, I encouraged my friends  to be CPOs of BIRU program to scale up biogas deployment. Furthermore, to implement my vision on sustainable coffee practices,  I managed to get seed grant from Eco-Peace Leadership Center (EPLC) Korea to initiate a project a project in one village benefiting 127 coffee farmers. Very convinced with prospect of the works with social enterprise model, I keep on expanding my networks with local NGOS and farmer organizations where so far I have database for potential partners around 7,000 smallholder coffee farmers for project replication and scale up in three years. I even have anticipated to replicate the business model to cocoa - a commodity facing similar impacts of climate change.

A business model with integrated economic, social, and environmental solutions enabling (re)investment for climate smart technologies and practices is what make us innovative. In the business perspective, in many ways, smallholder farmers are under-served market since they have low buying capacity, high risk, and costly operation required. Therefore,  local coffee exporters,  for example, prefer to work with local traders and aggregator as it’s more efficient neglecting the fact that sustainable coffee production lies in the hand of smallholder farmers. The situation leads to low bargain position of this small-scale producers, consequently, they nether want to maintain their crops nor reinvest in new technologies to improve farms’ productivity and resilience to climate change impacts. We basically don’t invent any new technologies and practices, instead, we develop a business model to make such technologies and practices more affordable to deploy massively.  Our business model serves integrated  social, economic, and environmental interventions while most projects or solutions simply conduct training on Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) and/or Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) as well as introduce the technologies and practices to  farmers through pilot project or demos. Furthermore, our innovation promotes the smallholder farmers’  soft skills like financial literacy and time management which actually influence their adoption to technologies and practices offered. Not only promoting the soft skills, the innovation also facilitates micro insurance for  health and education (www.bungkesmas.org) to provide social safety net and more importantly to elevate humanity for the smallholder coffee farmers and their families. 

Employing economic, social, and environmental interventions, the solution will result in short, medium, and long terms changes with measurable outputs. Tranings, demo-farms, and calendars distributed on GAP and CSA improve the smallholder farmers’ knowledge, skills, and motivation allowing their agricultural practices to be more purposeful and adaptive to climate change. As a result, their crops’ performance improves indicating better farms’ productivity and resilience. Similarly, deployment of biogas does not only provide renewable energy for cooking and lighting but also continuous source of organic fertilizer for the crops. Thus biogas will reduce the smallholder farmers’ families expenses on domestic energy and agro-inputs  together with decrease the use of fossil fuels and  chemicals. Similar benefits are also made from solar dryer dome utilization encouraging the farmers to switch from sun-drying or fossil fuels-generated dryers. Able to save money and time, they could use the money for other domestic or farming purposes while time saved could be allocated for coffee maintenance or other productive activities. The integration of sustainable coffee agriculture and renewable energy will solve two classic problems on small scale renewable energy deployment - high upfront cost and poor maintenance. Consequently, the financial institutions consider it a consumptive investment while the business model makes it productive investment thus more bankable. Meanwhile, Trainings on social entrepreneurship, business management, & financial literacy upgrade farmers’ soft skills to make financial analysis on their coffee agribusiness and execute it. The skills also makes the farmers’ organization more active, dynamic, and productive to generate employment and to improve farmers’ incomes. Other mid-term outcomes of this integrated interventions are the changes in attitudes and actions on sustainable development particularly on sustainable coffee production and consumption, sustainable livelihoods, fair and transparent agribusiness, mutually-beneficial partnership, social inclusion, and biodiversity conservation.  Eventually Having better access to renewable energy facility and sustainable agriculture technology, the smallholders farmers will not only contribute to climate change adaptation and mitigation (reduce GHG) but also promote sustainable coffee production to improve their livelihoods. Contribution to some Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) above means also elevating humanity. 

The direct beneficiaries of the project is smallholder coffee farmers with land titling less than 2 hectares where  some also grow livestock like cows and goat. Most of them have experienced the climate change impacts but they still lack of awareness about the situation. At the moment we’re working with 2,000 coffee farmers that we had assisted when working as NGO facilitators. Furthermore, we have network of farmer groups or cooperative with around 10,000 members. Targeting to serve the 10,000 smallholder farmers in the next five years, the social enterprise engages around 2,000 of whom each year. Working in two provinces - South Sulawesi and West Sulawesi,  Ritma Green has potential market around 150,000 farmers in both provinces including those growing the well-known Toraja coffee, Kalosi coffee, and Mamasa coffee. After five years, the solution will be replicated to cocoa since the commodity has similar characteristics to coffee in terms of vulnerability to climate change impacts and supply chain model.

Within the next year, our goals is securing the business model where the 2,000 farmers we’re working with will have adopted  the climate adaptation and mitigation technologies and practices. For legal purpose, those growing coffee in the state forest will have received social forestry permit. Furthermore, being mainstream technologies,  biogas and solar dryer dome are available at each farmer group or cooperative. As the business model is secured for coffee, most coffee green beans (and other commodities in the surrounding area like cocoa, clove, rice, and corn) will have been dried through solar dryer dome where the farmer groups or cooperatives get profit from drying fee.  For biogas, not simply having biogas for cooking and lighting, the smallholder farmers will have reduced their chemicals at their farms and switched to bio-slurry to fertilize other crops they grow. Within the next five years,  the business model will not only have benefited at least 10,000 coffee farmers  but also has been replicated to cocoa farmers. Coffee certification like RainForest, UTZ, Fairtrade, and organic will have been facilitated  to enable farmers obtain better income. Meanwhile micro-insurance will also have been granted social security net for health and education for all farmers and their family members. In short, the works will have elevated humanity by improving livelihoods of people in the coffee agribusiness supply chain while preserving the environment.

There are three main challenges or barriers faced by the social enterprise to accomplish its goals are (1) finding broader market for the coffee products, (2) High logistics cost for the climate-tolerant seeds/seedlings, and (3) working capital to buy farmers’ harvest and investment for business expansion. The key issue for business sustainability and profitability is getting better margin from the sale of  coffee products as better margin not only will enable the smallholder coffee farmers to invest to climate change adaptation and mitigation technologies but also will enable the social enterprise to sustain its services. Therefore, finding broader for green beans, roasted coffee, and ground coffee produced is essential as at present our market still relies on  local processors or exporters. Requiring big quantity, exporting green beans is an interesting business which could accelerate business replication and scaling up. Meanwhile, as the climate tolerant seedlings are sent from different island by airplane to remote areas, the logistics cost is over 10 times higher than the price of the seedling itself. Air transportation is still a priority considering the seedlings’ survival rate. The last barrier is obtaining working capital to reduce farmers’ dependency to shark loan. There is always time gap of payment along the supply chain while farmers urgently need money for daily needs. Coffee is a capital extensive business as it requires $4 - 5 per kg bought. 

To overcome the challenges or barriers, the social enterprise has begun to and is planning to do the following ways:

(1) Finding broader market for the coffee products. Ritma Green together with its business partner, Koperasi Manipi has been assisted  by Dutch Senior Expert Program - PUM  (https://www.pum.nl) for improving its green beans, roasted coffee, and ground coffee products quality and building capacity  to export to Dutch and European market. Furthermore, Ritma Green is also a partner of  Sustainable Coffee Challange (https://www.sustaincoffee.org/) which is a platform of global coffee stakeholders to meet target on sustainable coffee practice. Our engagement is not only to state our commitment explicitly but also to find market for our products with similar commitment. In addition, the social enterprise also actively participate in export training to improve its competence.

(2) High logistics cost for the climate-tolerant seedlings.  Ritma Green has initiated a local nursery while seed garden as future source for climate tolerant seedlings is planned also to develop. In developing the coffee nursery and seed garden, we’re partnering with local farmer groups where they provide manpower and land .

(3) Working capital to buy farmers’ harvest and investment for business expansion. Partnership with financial institutions or impact investors is anticipated to solve these problems. Ritma Green together with its business partner, Koperasi Manipi is actively looking for investors and formulating credit proposals.

Ritma Green is currently partnering with some organizations having similar missions 

• Dutch Senior Expert Program - PUM  (https://www.pum.nl). PUM Netherlands senior experts is a non-profit organisation, which has been advising businesses in developing countries and emerging markets for more than 40 years. To this end, PUM links these businesses, at their own request, to Dutch professionals who voluntarily devote their considerable experience to creating a better world. Ritma Green is requesting assistance from PUM particularly to improve its green beans, roasted coffee, and ground coffee products quality and build its capacity for coffee export to Dutch and European market.
• Sustainable Coffee Challange (https://www.sustaincoffee.org/).  It is a platform of global coffee stakeholders to meet target on sustainable coffee practice. Our engagement to this platform is not only to state our commitment explicitly but also to find market for our products with companies sharing similar commitment as its members also includes cafe’, roastery and large coffee shops chains from around the globe.
• Koperasi Manipi. The cooperative is our coffee business partner since it has drying facility and warehouse together with networks with local coffee exporters.  At present, Ritma Green is aggregating its assisted farmers’ harvest to the cooperative with profit sharing model.
• Indonesia Domestic Biogas Program (www.biru.or.id). BIRU is our partner on small=scale renewable energy development
• Local NGOs. Two NGOs - IPPM and YVBI - are our partners from  community development aspects.

Our value proposition is provide finely selected and sustainable coffee products produced by smallholder farmers with climate change adaptation and mitigation practices. Our offering is responsibly produced coffee from small producers with strong environmental preservation and community empowerment missions. This social business has two types of key beneficiaries or customers – smallholder coffee farmers (beneficiaries) for the service (climate change adaptation and mitigation technologies and practices) and coffee lovers for the products (customers). The target customers will buy the service since it provides integrated solutions to their agribusiness problems while other alternative services with social entrepreneurship principles are not available.  Meanwhile, the coffee lovers  will buy the coffee produced since the coffee products are not only specialty in origin  but also apply sustainable coffee practices. Basically there are two motives of purchasing coffee – taste and story. Coffee lovers here are not individual customer (B2C) but coffee roastery, cafe’, shops or importers (B2B). The story on sustainable production with strong climate change adaptation and mitigation practices coupled with social entrepreneurship principles along the supply chain will be our differentiation from other products. Our business model is aggregating smallholder farmers’ harvest (1), adding values to be grade A green beans, roasted coffee, and ground coffee (2), selling the products to regional, national, and international markets (3), sharing profits to financial institutions or investors, Ritma Green, farmers through their organizations, and reinvestment (4), and reinvesting to climate adaptation and mitigation technologies and practices.

To fund our work, the social enterprise will carry out combination of  selling products and services, raising investment capital, and grants for  revenue streams. Our main products to sell are green beans, roasted, and ground coffee. Shortening supply chain by aggregating farmers’ harvest and selling to broader market will grant us better margin due to efficient supply chain. Developing coffee nursery, it also sells Arabica and Robusta coffee seedlings including climate tolerant seedlings to facilitated farmers, provision of governments, private company, and individual farmers. Another revenue stream is drying service fee from solar dyer business. Not only for drying coffee, clients for this service may also come from farmers of other crops like cocoa, rice, and cloves. Furthermore,  revenue stream comes also from biogas appliances business like biogas stove, lamp, manometer, water drain, main gas pipe, mixer, and gas tap. N the long run, carbon trading could be a revenue stream considering its strong climate change adaptation and mitigation value. Raising investment capital is crucial to do since coffee is capital intensive business while serving smallholder farmers take high operational costs. The biggest amount needed will be allocated to buy farmers’ harvest while the rest is for business expansion including for infrastructure. Therefore, investment from impact investors and/or loan from financial institutions for working capital are required. Meanwhile grant is still needed to cover community development aspects of the solution like farmer training, farmer organization strengthening, and demo or pilot for new technologies and practices.

Initiated in 2013 our biogas business has constructed around 300 biogas digesters whose funding comes from provincial government, district governments, CSR of private companies, village fund, and individuals. Most of our revenues still come from biogas businesses covering biogas construction fee, biogas appliances sale, and biogas training fee. Last year, the social enterprise received $4,285 from the biogas business. Developing project entitled promotion of smallholder coffee farmers’ adaptation and mitigation to climate change, the founder (Aqdar Maskur) was granted $2,000 for seed funding since he is selected as EPLC Fellow 2018 in Korea. Last year, the innovation received  New Zealand HEF Fund (grant) amounting NZD 22,600 collaborating with our local NGO partner - Institusi Penelitian dan Pengembangan Masyarakat (IPPM) to implement project entitled community-based sustainable Kurra coffee practices for climate change adaptation and livelihoods improvement. Working also as business development service (BDS) provider for some Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) including coffee SME, last year, Ritma Green received contracts amounting $7,285 for their business plan development and capacity building. As a result of this assistance, Government of Kurra Village where the project takes place allocated $20,384 from their village fund for coffee development in two consecutive years (2019 & 2020). Aggregating its assisted farmers’ green beans coffee , the social enterprise also got revenue  from its  business partner - Koperasi Kopi Manipi which sells coffee to local exporters. Last year the social enterprise got $1,071. 

Raising funds is crucial to do since coffee is capital intensive business while serving smallholder farmers consumes high operational costs. To fund its work, the social enterprise requires combination of debt, equity, and grant for coffee business development. Debt occupies the biggest portion of funds. Targeting to buy at least 350 tons next year, the estimated debt  or loan required for working capital is around $375,000 assuming each $ will be used to buy green beans three times. Loan needed each year will be doubled. Debt is the right funding model to buy coffee farmers’ green beans considering short period for harvest (from April to September). At the moment, Ritma Green together with its partner - Koperasi Manipi - is still supplying local exporters with net margin $0.22 per kg of green beans. However, if direct export could be done, potential profit could increased significantly over five times. Therefore, Ritma Green is actively looking for direct market. Meanwhile, value addition to be roasted coffee and ground coffee possibly increases margin to be tripled. Equity is the right type of funding for the roasted coffee and ground coffee businesses. Equity is also applicable to coffee nursery business. Equity amounting $214,286 will be particularly utilized for customer acquisition and infrastructure  Meanwhile grant is still needed to cover community development aspects of the solution like farmer training, farmer organization strengthening, and demo or pilot for new technologies and practices. Estimated amount of grant required to benefit 2,000 farmers is around $10,714. 

Due to corona virus, some budgets of the expected expenses have  to adapt to current situation where  global coffee consumption has changed in quality, quantity and pattern. Meanwhile, as harvest time has come, the coffee supply is big resulting in decrease in price. The total budget amounts $216,663 which is categorized into two types - fixed costs and variable costs. The amount for fixed cost this year is around $19,878 particularly for salaries, utilities, and internet. Meanwhile, Significant changes take place on variable costs particularly for working capital to buy farmers’ green beans as price decreases 30% - 40% compared to that of last year. The expected expense to buy farmers’ harvests is $178,571. Furthermore, Planning to develop nursery partnering with local farmers in two areas - South Sulawesi province and West Sulawesi province - the social enterprise is allocating $5,000 to purchase coffee seeds, agro-inputs, poly bags, water installations, etc. Other type of variable cost is for customer acquisition and marketing which is totaling $7,857 where one of which is allocated for lodging, meals and local transportation of PUM coffee expert visit for two weeks. Meanwhile other significant variable cost is  to cover community development aspects of the solution like farmer training, farmer organization strengthening, and demo or pilot for new technologies and practices. Targeting to serve 1,000 smallholder coffee farmers this year, the budget required  is around $5,357. Therefore, the total amount of variable costs is $196,785. 

Expanding our networks, increasing visibility to our missions and works, and seeking funding to replicate, scale up, and sustain our work are the major reasons for us to apply to this challenge. This prize offers a tailored media and marketing campaign aimed at amplifying their work, building recognition and a fanbase around the Global Hero. Such offers will increase the visibility to our works enabling us to to expand networks such as industry leaders that could be not only potential buyers for our coffee products but also potential investors for our business development. Furthermore, the networks like MIT faculty, other participants, NGOs and international organizations could also help improving and enriching our works with new technologies and different interventions. For similar reasons, this prize also offers in cash (access to a minimum prize of US$300,000 spread over two years, with potential for additional funding) and in-kind supports such as professional management and development services, mentorship and coaching, educational training, capacity building, and connection with influencers, industry leaders, and experts through Elevate Prize Foundation’s two-year program. The cash prize amount together with its duration will be enough to secure our business model and strengthen our business fundamentals to meet our short term target to serve 4,000 smallholder coffee farmers in 2 years while investors’ funding will be allocated for business expansion. Moreover, the in-kind supports will accelerate our organization and management to meet its targets. 

The critical point for the business model development is to find extensive markets sharing similar values on sustainable coffee production and  willing to pay for better price. Such markets will not only serve better margin for the farmers and the social enterprise but also accelerate (re)investments on climate smart technologies Our current customers are still local exporters buying green beans coffee without sustainable production missions. Therefore, visibility of our commitments and works needs significant improvements through marketing , media, and exposure. Furthermore,  coffee business is capital intensive while serving smallholder farmers requires high operational costs. Thus, funding and revenue model is required to replicate, scale up and sustain the social enterprise. Funding is mostly needed for customer acquisition and working capital to buy farmers’ coffee harvest. Meanwhile, Mentorship and/or coaching is to improve our business management as our team mostly has technical and community development backgrounds.

Ritma Green classifies its works to facilitate smallholder farmers into three types: Access to Technology (A2T), Access to Market (A2M), and Access to Finance (A2F). For A2T, we are welcome for new partnership with any organizations working at the same issues and field as well as sharing similar values. MIT faculty could be strategic partner for research on climate change and agriculture, carbon trading mechanism, climate smart technologies development as we keep on looking other innovations to enrich our works. For similar reason, we are keen to work with other global heroes or participants of other MIT  Solve prizes and challenges like Datagreen, Forest FootPrint, Agritech Solution, and Rural Digital Transformation to advance our solution into digital system.  Digitizing data on production, price, agro-inputs, and trace-ability is necessary to apply at our business as premium customers are care about their consumed coffee trace-ability. Equally important, Partners for A2M and A2F are also required to help advance our solution. In this case, MIT networks could also be strategic partners for business development like Falcon Coffee, Olam International, and Starbucks as they have similar business. Partnering with them will not only enable us to shorten supply chains but also enable us and our beneficiaries to reinvest to climate smart technologies. Likewise,  financial institutions or investors play vital role to ensure solution’s replication and scale-up. For this reason, Solve Innovation Future together with other MIT’s partners impact investors  is a potential partner to have for business development.