In the summer of 2023, we visited Hezya co-operative after a couple of years buying microlots from them Hezya in a large Mbeya region tour. Â The trip was truly enlightening and showed the real potential of the Hezya's quality while also highlighting some issues that could be addressed quickly. Â We traveled with Crop to Cup coffee Importers, hosted by Taylor Winch and couldn't have had more qualified people digging deep into hard conversations around quality control.Â
Founded in June 2017 with just 50 members, the strong leadership of Hezya AMCOS, the cooperative’s success in the direct export channel. and efficient distribution of resulting premiumsled the cooperative to grow to 295 members within its first five years. Through the ACMOS, member farmers—smallholders from Hezya and surrounding villages of Haraka and Izumbi who have, on average, less than 1 hectare each—have access to agro-inputs, micro-loans and trainings aimed at generational and gender inclusion in pursuit of economic stabilization and the growth of specialty production. Part of their success came from central processing at the co op’s CPU for the 2022/23 harvest, built through a loan provided by our export partners at Taylor Winch. Delivering cherry to the wet mill allows quality controls through to drying, earning the cooperative (and its members) additional premiums.
