Hama is very old cooperative in the Kochere district of Ethiopia’s Gedeo zone, the epicenter of one of the most beloved terroirs in the world. Comprised of extremely small and diversified organic farmers, Hama is one of the many individual cooperatives that make up the storied Yirgacheffe Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union (YCFCU).
Yirgacheffe and its Coffee
Hama is a municipality located in the southern central part of the coveted Gedeo Zone—the narrow section of highland plateau dense with savvy farmers and fiercely competitive processors whose coffee is known the world over as “Yirgacheffe”, after the zone’s most famous district, Yirga Chefe. The Gedeo Zone is named for the Gedeo people who are indigenous to this area. As a coffee terroir, Gedeo, or “Yirgacheffe”, has for decades been considered a benchmark for beauty and complexity in arabica coffee. It’s known for being beguilingly ornate and jasmine-like when fully washed, and seductively punchy and sweet when sundried, and hardly requires an introduction.
Farmland in this area is quintessentially tiny and growers average about a single hectare per family. (Hama has 2,175 members who collectively farm 2274 hectares of land.) Despite the diminutive size, farmland is often diversified, divided between coffee, subsistence crops for the families, and items for the regional markets such as livestock, cabbage, or enset, a fruit-less relative of the banana tree whose pulp is fermented and then toasted as a staple food.
Hama Coop and Processing
Hama was first formed in 1979 with only 50 local farmers. This was long before fully washed coffee was even a norm in Ethiopia. The coop has 10 year-round management employees and a harvest staff of more than 250 to help with all the daily tasks involved with cherry intake, processing and drying, inventory, finances, record keeping, and security.
Naturals at Hama begin with hand-sorting freshly picked cherries on arrival to the processing station. Sorted cherry is taken directly to raised screen beds to sun dry, a process that takes about 3 weeks to complete. During this time cherry is consistently rotated to allow for even airflow and dehydration. It is also covered overnight to prevent humidity from settling on the cherry, and again during the mid-day hours when the overhead sun is often searingly hot, to prevent the coffee’s skin from rupturing in the heat. Once fully dried the coffee is moved to the Union’s local warehouse to be hulled of the dried fruit and await transportation to Addis Ababa, where it is fully milled and prepped for export.
The Yirgacheffe Union
Hama is one of the primary cooperatives that together make up the Yirgacheffe Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union (YCFCU). The Union, first established In 2002, has more than 45,000 individual farmer members and 28 different cooperatives across Gedeo Zone, almost all of which are Fair Trade certified. (Gedeo, while tiny compared to neighboring Sidama and Guji zones, is one of Ethiopia’s most densely populated areas after Addis Ababa.) The members of each primary cooperative elect their own executive committee which makes decisions about investments like new equipment and tree maintenance, but also creates plans for member social services, school support, public health, infrastructure, and how to structure payments to the coop members. YCFCU also appoints professional managers for each primary cooperative to oversee harvest and processing procedures, who are accountable to the members and the executive committee.
