Uganda is one of Africa’s top coffee exporters, with 74% of its coffee going to Europe. Much of the value-added processing is done by global companies and middlemen.
Just Know Your Coffee Cup, or JKCC, is one of a handful of Ugandan companies that process and export coffee. Launched in 2017, JKCC sources all its coffee directly from a network of over 7,000 smallholder farmers from nearly 100 farmer groups across Uganda.
It provides farmers with technical assistance, financial literacy training and interest-free credit lines via its savings and credit subsidiary. “It’s great to see a local coffee exporter be so successful among the international traders,” said Roel Messie of Dutch non-profit IDH, which, via its Farmfit Fund, provided a $6.5 million subordinated loan to the coffee producer. He credits JKCC’s farmer support for much of the success.
Blended finance
JKCC will use the funding for working capital and to provide technical assistance to 20,000 farmers. The funding follows a €800,000 ($908,000) investment in 2023 from the Agri-Business Capital Fund, an impact fund backing rural agribusinesses and smallholders across Africa and Latin America.
FarmFit, a €100 million ($114 million) blended finance impact fund, aims to attract commercial investors in backing smallholder farmers in developing countries. It takes first loss responsibility and was previously supported by a second loss guarantee from USAID of up to $250 million.
The loan to JKCC was made in collaboration with the Africa Agriculture and Trade Investment Fund.
