I just wanted to post this video because the people here make their living from coffee and I have always liked the coffee from this really poor country. I will be bringing in more Burundi soon. Next time you see coffee from here, try it! Next time you sip on your coffee remember the hard work that goes into your cup!
Burundi: a country shattered by civil conflict, including two genocides. It has one of the lowest per capita incomes in the world, with 90% of the population relying on subsistence agriculture. According to the Global Hunger Index, the percentage of its population going hungry is the worst in the world, and “extremely alarming”. Yet as bleak as that sounds, one coffee-producing family believes that coffee has the ability to make significant positive change in people’s lives.
Coffee was introduced to a colonised Burundi in the 1930s, and since then, has vacillated between being government-owned and privatised. During this time, decades of civil conflict have stunted Burundi’s coffee production and value.
Other factors have also been detrimental to Burundi’s coffee industry. Bureaucracy is one of them. So is geography. As a landlocked country, bordering Rwanda to the North, Tanzania to the east and south, and the Democratic Republic of Congo to the west, exporting coffee is difficult. It’s hard to maintain the coffee’s quality during transportation.