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Farming the best homegrown coffee beans from Kedah

NESCAFÉ GROWN RESPECTFULLY
Coffee beans cupped in a farmer’s hands.
As part of our global commitment to ensure that 100% of our coffee beans are responsibly-sourced and sustainably-certified by 2025, NESCAFÉ GROWN RESPECTFULLY was launched in 2019 in Malaysia, marking our third Farmer Connect project after NESTLÉ CHILLI CLUB and NESTLÉ PADDY CLUB.
A coffee farmer tending his plants.

With the support of local partners FELDA (Federal Land Development Authority), KSDA (Kedah State Department of Agriculture), KEDA (Kedah Economic Development Authority), KAF (Pertubuhan Kami Anak FELDA) and MARDI (Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute), NESCAFÉ GROWN RESPECTFULLY is a sustainable coffee farming initiative which aims to revive the local coffee farming sector and improve the livelihood of farmers in Kedah.

Building on our roots

Nestlé’s history with coffee farming in Malaysia dates back to the early 1990s, when we pioneered working with farmers in Kedah to grow coffee beans. At the time, we built a mother plant nursery that is now central to our NESCAFÉ GROWN RESPECTFULLY programme and is being rehabilitated to provide planting materials for our coffee seedling production.

Coffee trees grown from seedlings that come from a localised nursery are typically more productive. Thanks to grafting technology, we have been replicating the mother plant at our nursery over the years and as a result, we will have enough seedlings for the farmers in Kedah to utilise in the coming years.

For the pilot phase of the programme, Nestlé is producing over approximately 50,000 Robusta coffee seedlings to be distributed to 200 local farmers for planting across 100 acres of land by 2020. The seedlings are being jointly developed with KSDA.

A coffee farmer tending his plants
 

End-to-end support

NESCAFÉ GROWN RESPECTFULLY looks to support farmers at every stage of the coffee farming process, sharing our knowledge as well as providing training and technical assistance. From guiding them on the best agricultural practices to increasing productivity and yields, optimising cost of production, improving quality of green beans as well as post-harvest operations. This, in turn, not only offers our farmers better quality yield, helping them further enhance their livelihoods, it also improves Nestlé’s sustainable coffee supply chain.

These coffee beans that meet Nestlé’s stringent quality requirements will be purchased for the production of our Nescafé coffee products. By 2022, we target to purchase 100 metric tonnes of coffee beans through this programme.

Through NESCAFÉ GROWN RESPECTFULLY, we aim to contribute to the development of a resilient community as part of a secure, long-term supply chain.