A study case on coffee (Coffea arabica): Limu Coffe - IRD

What do coffee plots mean in the Limu Inara Farmers Mutli-Purpose Cooperative
Union framework?
Coffee trees
1 ha
Illustration 26: Coffee plot? (prod: Bossolasco, 2009)
A single farmer owns one or more coffee plots: in his garden, around his house and in
agro-forests in a one-km-radius generally. Here, plots mean units. But according to union
standards, one plot is 0.5 ha of coffee. That means one plot could be the sum of two coffee
units of 0.25 ha. In our example, the blue corresponds to one coffee plot (in fact two distinct
coffee units), the yellow also to one coffee plot (in fact one coffee unit) and the green to two
coffee plots (in fact one coffee unit). This space measurement allows the union staff counting
and registering plots in a realistic method. Otherwise it would be very difficult to register each
coffee place, and to consider its relative importance. Anyway, this representation of coffee
space spreading is the best existing model to reflect the reality, and is correlated with the real
and especially relative number of coffee units per grower. Another example: if the coffee area
of a single grower is 2 ha and its number of coffee plots is 3, it means that 0.5 ha are not
registered by the union.
Farmer home and
garden
Coffee plot
Coffee trees
0.5 ha
Coffee trees
0.25 ha
Coffee trees
0.25 ha
Kamisee Baabiyaa is the woreda farmers’ association where can be found the more
coffee plots per farmer: a four-average coffee plots per better-off peasant. Why? Because this
kebele is the most forest covered one and shelters a part of Babiya Folla protected forest
which is a potentially wild coffee space. Baabbuu is the closest town.
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