MCH Student:

Haley Hontos

Date of Defense:

December 16, 2014

Abstract:

Lutheran World Relief (LWR), an international relief and development agency, works with  smallholder  coffee farmers in developing countries to help improve farmers’ livelihoods. Since  2007, LWR has initiated 18 coffee projects in six countries, reaching over 67,000 direct coffee – farming beneficiaries. LWR seeks to increase funding to expand its work in the coffee sector  with smallholder coffee farmers; however, due to gaps in monitoring and evaluation, LWR  cannot comprehensively assess its successes in the coffee sector. Additionally, LWR cannot  illustrate its overall coffee strategy because it has not analyzed the various coffee strategies  across regions. While there are similar objectives for many of these coffee projects (e.g.,  increased production), there are few common outputs and outcomes, making comparison  difficult.

This technical report  documents and classifies each project intervention under corresponding  Agriculture Core Program Models, of which LWR has five models that is uses in its coffee  projects (Agriculture Value Chain, Rural Financing, Capacity Building for Farmers’  Organizations , Climate Smart Agriculture, and Food Security). The majority of coffee projects  are fall under Agriculture Value Chain, Climate Smart Agriculture, and Capacity Building for  Farmers’ Organizations. The most common interventions used are education and training (in  various forms and on multiple topics), access to equipment, strengthening of farmers’  organizations by means of strategic or capacity strengthening planning, and incorporation of  organic farming practices and soil and water conservation methods in response to climate  change.