Background
Alice Bira – Field officer
My name is Alice, I am a field officer for Agri Evolve and I go to the field twice a week to train farmers. In each group, there are around 20 farmers. I teach the farmers good agricultural practices. The farmers appreciate the training and they are interested in learning. They understand that when they improve their coffee, they can get more money.’
‘I like my job so much, I enjoy it. I have got very many friends because of the trainings. People are improving, we tell them things they have forgotten and they learn new things.’
‘Sometimes I also learn from them, for instance, when we talk about pest and diseases. They use local herbs like red pepper and they mix it with other herbs. They use these as chemicals to spray their coffee. To some extent, it has been working for them, although it is not all that perfect. What I also found out is that they use local herbs for bees. You see, if you use burned chemicals (?), bees disappear, which is bad, because bees help the coffee trees with flowering. But if you use local herbs, the bees do not go away.’ [not sure this is something to use, but interesting…]
‘I am appreciating the knowledge Agri Evolve brings me a lot. I enjoy the trainings I get and when I go to the field I really know what I am doing and people appreciate it.’
‘Before this job, I worked as a community conflict manager for an NGO. This background sometimes helps me in my job. When there are conflicts over coffee or land; I can help and improve the situation.’
‘In this last season, people really improved the quality of their coffee. They sold us beautiful red cherries much more. As a consequence, people have gained a lot. The lifestyle in this region has improved for all of us.’
Images (5 Files)
Alice Bira can be used for content around any of the coffees produced from the 