Daphrose’s Story
Our goal for each Fellow in the Kula Fellowship is to both increase their coffee production and develop new and diversified revenue streams. Although coffee is uniquely advantageous in its profitability, due to land scarcity in Rwanda many farmers aren’t able to expand their farm size enough to increase their income substantially from coffee alone.
For recent graduate Daphrose, this meant developing her sorghum business, with which she won a Kula Business Grant. She now purchases sorghum from farmers around her community when the market price is low, stores it, and resells the stock when the market rises. Through her profits, she has been able to purchase a new cow and build a secure shed for her livestock, providing milk for her family and manure for her coffee farm.
Before the fellowship, she only earned money once a year through harvesting what she’d grown, and struggled with confidence in her ability to grow her earnings. Now, through the addition of her sorghum business, she is able to earn money throughout the year, providing stability and security. With each success story like Daphrose’s, we see the strength in the Fellowship’s combination of coffee agronomy support and business development, both key in supporting Fellows out of poverty and into a new future.
