Israel-Indonesia Futures – Challenge 3

ISRAEL-INDONESIA FUTURES PROGRAM

CHALLENGE 3:

SUSTAINABLE COFFEE PRODUCTION THROUGH AGRO-FORESTRY

This Indonesian social enterprise, formed in 2015, works to protect natural forest and promote reforestation as part of global effort to mitigate climate change.
CHALLENGE

They do this by working with farmers on the island of Java, training them to grow coffee arabica through agroforestry techniques, which is then sold to coffee shops in Jakarta.

Challenge:

Indonesia is the world’s fourth largest coffee producer. However, 96% of the country’s coffee producers are smallholder farmers (totalling 1.3 million farmers) with an average of less than one hectare of land per farming family.

Furthermore, the average amount of coffee beans produced per hectare in Indonesia is only a third that of coffee produced per hectare in Brazil.

Climate change, meanwhile, has significantly affected coffee production, with yields decreasing 10% for every increase in temperature of 1 degree Celsius. This is a threat to the country’s natural forests. Coffee arabica needs temperatures averaging 16-23C. As the average temperatures increase, coffee farmers are moving to more hilly areas, encroaching on natural protected forest.

Team Deliverable:

The assigned team on this challenge will develop a plan and road-map for implementation of:

An agroforestry model that is suitable for coffee production and which benefits both farmers and the forest – determining what kind of trees should shade the coffee plants, and how to increase yields per coffee plant / per hectare through increase of seed quality, supported by best agricultural practices, and implementation of the right agritech and agri-business models for increasing productivity and farmers’ revenue.
Agroforestry-based solutions to keep coffee farmer agroforestry to a maximum of 1,600 meters above sea level.
Connecting the company’s team to resources on relevant agroforestry research, and connecting them to relevant agritech networks, contacts and training opportunities.

Team criteria:

Israeli candidates for this team should be able to demonstrate at least one of the following:

Expertise in low-cost, environmentally sustainable agritech, methodologies and training that smallholder farmers can apply / adopt to maximize their yields.
Expertise in developing agri-business models for smallholder farmers and social enterprises in the sustainable food production industry to increase their income.

Indonesian candidates for this team should be able to demonstrate at least one of the following: