Uganda-based Mountain Harvest was launched in 2017 by Lutheran World Relief’s impact fund Ground Up Investing to raise the incomes of smallholder coffee farmers. The move followed the 2015 collapse of the (now revived) Gumutindo Coffee Cooperative, one of Uganda’s largest coffee unions. Mountain Harvest buys organic, Fair Trade Arabica beans from more than a thousand local farmers, offering them between 13% to 37% more than market rates, and sells the coffee for export. Farmers receive a bonus based on sales.
Acumen invested an undisclosed amount in the company, to help it set up a warehouse, purchase processing equipment and acquire land to expand its operations. “Acumen’s investment in Mountain Harvest is catalytic,” said Acumen’s Millycent Aoko. “It enables the company to deepen its impact with farmers, strengthen its financial sustainability, and set new standards for gender and youth inclusion in Uganda’s coffee sector.”
Mountain Harvest previously raised $250,000 in two crowdfunding campaigns via Kiva.
Income diversification
Uganda is now Africa’s top coffee exporter, but Mountain Harvest’s network of smallholder farmers cultivate other crops to sustain themselves when coffee isn’t being harvested. The company offers them training on regenerative agriculture practices and provides high quality inputs for avocados, beans, macadamia and honey production. It also provides micro-loans to prevent farmers facing cashflow issues from having to harvest prematurely, which can cut their revenues by up to 75%.
Mountain Harvest’s digital tracing helps farmers fetch premium prices. It had paid out $4.4 million to its farmer network by the end of 2024, according to Corus International, which runs Lutheran World Relief.
