Landell Mills wins ADB-funded contract to support coffee farmers in Indonesia

Landell Mills is pleased to announce we have been awarded a new contract focussed on strengthening the coffee sector in Indonesia. The technical assistance (TA) contract, 'Olam International Limited: Inclusive, Sustainable, and Connected Coffee Value Chain' is funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and will have a duration of two and a half years.

Coffee is an important sector in Indonesia but primarily characterized by unorganized, small-scale farming. The vast majority of coffee produced in Indonesia, the second largest coffee producing country in the world, is grown by smallholders on farms averaging around one hectare whose livelihoods depend on a successful coffee crop.

Smallholder coffee farmers across Indonesia face common challenges that include ageing trees, lack of access to finance and quality inputs, low yields, lack of storage and market infrastructure, limited local value addition, and dependence on middlemen. In Indonesia, low yields (three times lower than that of Viet Nam) are due to the poor penetration rate of extension services and access to/adoption of technology being very low among smallholder coffee farmers.

'Olam International Limited: Inclusive, Sustainable, and Connected Coffee Value Chain', which will be implemented by Landell Mills, will support farmers in Sumatra, Indonesia, to be included in the global coffee supply chain by helping them to adopt sustainable farming practices and increase their production, quality, and income.

The TA will complement the $163 million loan agreement between ADB and global agribusiness company, Olam, and support Olam's $211 million investment plan by financing an expansion in the firm's processing of midstream products, while providing permanent working capital investments for small holder farmers.

Landell Mills Project Manager, Patrick Lee, commented: "Landell Mills is pleased to be implementing our second project on behalf of Olam, an agri-buyer and processor, through the Asian Development Bank and building on our experience in Timor-Leste. This new contract helps to expand our portfolio of work in agricultural commodities specifically in the coffee sector.

"We look forward to helping identify rural farmers in Sumatra, Indonesia, training those farmers in our modular course on good agricultural practice around coffee agronomy, embracing agroforestry, and helping them to produce more coffee of better quality, while ensuring they are better integrated into the coffee value chain."

Landell Mills Field Coordinators in Timor-Leste train coffee farmers in Good Agricultural Practice