Advanced Coffee Crop Optimisation for Rural Development (IPP Case Study)
The ‘Advanced Coffee Crop Optimisation for Rural Development’ (ACCORD) programme used satellite technology and weather data in an innovative way to provide tailored information to smallholder farmers in Kenya and Rwanda on their coffee crops. The farmers could thus make more timely and informed crop management decisions that would increase their income.
The project ran for 3 years to March 2021. It was funded by the International Partnership Programme of the UK Space Agency which is committed to using the UK’s space sector research and innovation strengths to deliver sustainable economic, societal and environmental benefit to those living in emerging and developing economies. IPP is funded from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy’s (BEIS) Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF), supporting research and innovation on global issues affecting emerging and developing countries. The project was led by Earth-i, with WeatherSafe, Coffee Management Services, Kinini and San Francisco Bay Coffee as consortium members, and with Oxford Policy Management leading the Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) workstream.