NBC Services

Business Model

In line with our business model, the sustainable coffees model, NBC has over the last five years organized Kabarole and Bunyangabu coffee farmers into village co-operatives with each co-operative fully constituted and registered as a Community Based Organization (CBO) and operating as a business at the parish level. There are currently 16 fully functional village co-operatives in our network; each consisting of between 30 and 300 farmers and they are currently spread in eight sub-counties across the length and breadth of the mountain in the districts of Kabarole, Bunyangabu and Ntoroko. These farmers constitute a dedicated 2,000+ strong supplier network of smallholder farmers who produce the fresh Arabica red cherries that NBC processes. Each of these co-operatives or farmer groups operate out of a specific village hub which has been created by NBC. For us, the essence of forming these units is that we are able to know and relate directly with our suppliers in order to improve the coffee value chain through influencing the production of coffee which is in line with our business model. Before the commencement of each season, NBC enters into a new Memorandum of Understanding with regard to the quantity and quality of supply and other logistical details relating to the supply parameters.

With the advent of the information age and the sprouting of global café chains, producers and consumers all over the world have been brought closer together than ever before and the issue of market access has been re-defined resulting in a shift in the qualitative direction. Within the context of the coffee industry various initiatives that are aimed at meeting specific consumer demands are required and most of these specific demands can only be met through direct integration of the value chain.

The strength and cohesion of the NBC network of village co-operatives is such that it has enabled us to partner and work successfully a small MFI, and together, by leveraging data collected from these farmers for purposes of rural agricultural credit-scoring, it has been possible to provide affordable, unsecured six-month revolving agricultural loans to more than 2,200 of the farmers in these 16 farmer groups through mobile telephone technology. Lack of credit for coffee farmers who are the mainstay of our export economy and who produce the most valuable cash crop, leaves them vulnerable and susceptible to manipulation and this makes them unable to focus on production of quality coffee which is the cornerstone of the sustainable coffee model that NBC follows.

Farmer Groups

Organized village co-operatives or farmer groups facilitate easy sensitization, training and in extension work, and they constitute an organized and formidable production force. The strength and cohesion of our network has enabled us to partner and work successfully with an MFI which provides affordable unsecured credit to all the farmers most of whom are unbanked. Lack of credit for coffee farmers who are the mainstay of our export economy and who produce the most valuable cash crop, leaves them vulnerable and susceptible to manipulation.

Following a process of registration of these village co-operatives and collection of pertinent data from each individual farmer including age, exact location where the farmers are found, number of coffee trees, acreage under coffee, expected seasonal output from each farmer etc., and by leveraging this data collected from farmers for purposes of rural agricultural credit-scoring, it has been possible to provide unsecured agricultural loans of between $ 200 to $1,100 to more than 2,000 farmers in our supplier network so far through mobile telephone technology and this has served as an effective means to drive much needed rural financial access. Financial inclusion provides a route for the farmers to manage their finances better in a country where only one in six citizens has a bank account. We are currently developing a one of-a-kind model which will provide for value addition through full chain traceability and will ultimately enable us to fully implement our business model across the entire network. These factors have already greatly contributed to the improvement of post-harvest ethics and to the quality of the coffee that is produced and will ultimately ensure that all coffee produced is traceable to its source. Traceability is a key attribute in the 21st Century global economy and ensuring quality and traceability will guarantee premiums for farmers.