Sirawit Sirichokwatanakul's latest batch of Gesha roasted coffee beans sold out within 40 minutes after posting on his Facebook page of nearly 5,000 followers. Many paid up quickly to order from this Akha coffee smallholder in the northern province of Chiang Rai's Mae Chan Tai village.
Situated 1,500m above sea level, Mae Chan Tai is one of a few local ethnic villages running a community-owned coffee enterprise to produce high-quality beans and roasted coffee to sell and improve their communities and livelihoods.
Lacking access to electricity, public utilities and infrastructure drove Siriwat and hundreds of younger Akha villagers to overcome their northern highland difficulties and seek ways to sustainably develop their communities without having to leave their Akha roots.
"We love our birthplace. We would like to continue growing coffee together with other crops and further develop our knowledge and skills so that our families and children will have better livelihoods and opportunities," he said.
Siriwat is the second generation of Akha to cultivate coffee. Previous generations grew opium until the early 2000s and engaged in slash and burn agriculture. The Royal Project introduced coffee and other highland crops such as plums to grow as an alternative source of income.
His generation in Mae Chan Tai can earn a living out of the coffee grown on their 2,200 rai plots of highland. A lack of marketing and connections to consumers downstream are typical challenges facing coffee smallholders. Their coffee products are still not well-known and fetch low prices while logistic and production costs are high. Mae Chan Tai still lacks access to electricity and public utilities and the 3km rocky road to the village is so muddy during rainy season that it takes up to half-an-hour or more to get there.
Establishing community enterprise
These difficulties have inspired the young Akha generation in Mae Chan Tai to think outside the box and seek ways to enhance their agricultural capacity and know-how. With seed funding and advisory support from the Japan-based General Incorporated Association for the Promotion of Self-reliance in Asia (GIAPSA), the Mae Chan Tai Community Enterprise was formed in November 2018 with an aim to promote community-based enterprises for quality Arabica coffee production, processing and marketing in order to increase income and employment opportunities.
In 2019, the project enabled the village to establish its own agri-processing centre. To reduce production costs, necessary equipment including coffee hulling and roasting machines were supplied, and training seminars on coffee production, processing, roasting, branding and marketing of their Mae Chan Tai Arabica Specialty Coffee were carried out. To upscale their market supply chain and branding, a retail antenna shop jointly owned by the Mae Chan Tai community and GIAPSA was opened in Bangkok's financial district of Sathon in March 2021.
Hopes for a quick return on their investment however were stalled by the Covid-19 pandemic. But in June, the coffee shop noticed a sharp increase in customers who appreciate the taste of the single origin high-quality bean.
Sirawit also spent time upgrading his own coffee skills and now possesses professional coffee brewing and roasting skill certificates.
"Having a retail shop not only enables producers to connect directly with consumers, but also allows producers to boost their income and quality of their product. It also provides an opportunity for consumers to contribute and take a part in project activities by buying coffee drinks and coffee beans," said Hiroyuki Konuma, GIAPSA founder and executive director.
The majority of Mae Chan Tai villagers are adolescents and young adults who are very keen on improving living conditions and enthusiastic to work as a team. The village head is strong at administrating activities and businesses, building good relationships with local government while preserving the forest land and natural resources surrounding their community. These are good assets that highlight the development potential of the village, Konuma said.
Enhancing coffee identity and competitiveness
Three years on, the processing centre is fully operational with capacity to produce up to 80,000kg of beans per year. Marketing their coffee remains a challenge. As a social business, it is expected that half of the net profit of the coffee shop is contributed to the village for their social welfare and community activities, while the other half is allocated to other disadvantaged groups in Thailand following the country's Sustainable Development Goals.
The majority of coffee grown in Mae Chan Tai is Catimor, Caturra, Typica and Yellow Bourbon, which have been long favoured by Southeast Asian coffee-producing countries due to its disease-resistance and good yields. The various cultivars are planted next to each other on the mountain slopes and mixed together during the hand-picked harvesting.
Such challenges inspired Sirawit and young enterprise members to learn more about coffee production, processing and roasting skills. Their effort paid off when Mae Chan Tai coffee won 10th and 3rd place at Thailand's best national speciality coffee competition in 2019 and 2020, respectively.
Moreover, Sirawit also learned how to grow Gesha coffee, regarded as one of the most exclusive coffees in the world and renowned for its incredibly distinct flavour and high price. It originally hails from Ethiopia, with the most well known version coming from a specific region in Panama.
Sirawit sought Gesha seedlings from Nan province to grow on 5 rai land plots in Mae Chan Tai. After five years of hard work and self-learning, he began selling the new coffee products on his own and is contributing to the community enterprise. Sirawit said he hopes to enter his coffee in the national competition next year.
The community also works with Chiang Mai University's centre of highland coffee development to seek other coffee species and seedlings.
Sirawat is helping to educate younger farmers in coffee growing so that they can join the community enterprise. Anusorn Jue-pa is one of the young coffee enthusiasts who would like to improve his skills. As a goal, he hopes to help build the identity of Mae Chan Thai coffee not only at the national, but the international level as well.
"We would like to upscale our identity to a new level. As long as we never stop improving ourselves, there's always be a way forward for community and livelihood development," he said.
