Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/520302
Paineto Baluku, managing director of Bukonzo Co-operative Union, and Katherine Nolte, coffee marketer and marketing advisor for Twin present at Symposium 2015. Last to speak in the symposium session were Paineto Baluku, managing director of Bukonzo Co-operative Union, and Katherine Nolte, coffee marketer and marketing advisor for Twin. Together, they told the story of how coffee quality problems had a direct link to the ways traditional gender roles affected the work happening on member farms. In an interview after that session, Baluku explained in more detail why coffee quality suffered in his area for many years: "[Women] were picking the coffee before their husbands would come [home] because they were fearing the husbands [would sell] away the whole garden. They were picking [too soon] so that they (the women) could keep the money." Picking early meant a lot of under ripe cherry was sold to the middle men who would come during harvest season. Baluku understood that if the cooperative could gain better access to international markets, they could keep more of the proceeds from selling coffee. To do that, the members needed to understand what happened to the cherries once they were sold and how to grow a product international buyers wanted to purchase. As it turned out, another key factor in being able to earn more money and keep it in farming communities involved shifting the dynamics of who made decisions about spending it and how those decisions got made. The cooperative found a way influence that process by developing a better understanding of the interplay between business and gender roles. This work dovetailed with that of others attempting to create a more effective method for economic development. The result of those efforts is the Gender Action Learning System (GALS), a participatory model for exploring gender dynamics in rural communities. Women now comprise about 85% of the Bukonzo Joint Co-operative's 5000 farmer members. According Buluku the fact that 55% of its board members are women is intentional. He said, "If we make [the board] open, [we would] see men coming on board and pushing away some women so this is why we put it as a policy." Nolte and Buluku credit the significant increase in the cooperative's coffee's cupping scores during the past four years to that institutional commitment to women and to the ongoing use of GALS to set and review the organization's business goals. The SCAA Sustainability Committee recognized their success with this approach by awarding the Bukonzo Joint Cooperative the SCAA Sustainability Award this year.