Bulamu Group is a group of companies that started with a focus on coffee and has now expanded to a diversified group of companies, including an animal farm focused on pork production. Within its coffee business, Bulamu has focused primarily on Robusta purchases from agents and is now looking to source directly from smallholder farmers. They will start out with around 4,000 farmers, and this will increase to around 12,500 within 10 years.
They provide these farmers with services such as farmer organization, GAP training, input provision, a youth extension network, diversification, certification, and access to finance. Diversification is a key component in making the SDM work for the farmers and improving their livelihoods by decreasing risk, smoothing out cash flow and increasing food security.
The SDM allows Bulamu to source more and higher quality coffee, and to do so more efficiently. Additionally they increase the revenue of their animal farm through the diversification service. In our analysis, this creates enough value to justify covering the net costs of providing the various SDM services to farmers.