Kilimanjaro Native Cooperative Union (KNCU) is a

cooperative federation A co-operative federation or secondary co-operative is a co-operative in which all members are, in turn, co-operatives. Historically, co-operative federations have predominantly come in the form of co-operative wholesale societies and co-operative ...

Tanzania Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands and ...

and the oldest

cooperative A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-control ...

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

, founded in 1930 by Charles Dundas. KNCU is owned by the farmers of the 90 primary cooperative societies which buy

coffee Coffee is a drink prepared from roasted coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulant, stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content. It is the most popular hot drink in the world. S ...

from the

farmer A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, raising living organisms for food or raw materials. The term usually applies to people who do some combination of raising field crops, orchards, vineyards, poultry, or other livestock. A farmer mig ...

s on

Kilimanjaro Mount Kilimanjaro () is a dormant volcano in Tanzania. It has three volcanic cones: Kibo, Mawenzi, and Shira. It is the highest mountain in Africa and the highest free-standing mountain above sea level in the world: above sea level and ab ...

. Offices for the cooperative are located in Moshi. KNCU flourished in the 1950s and 1960s and drove much of the development of the

Kilimanjaro Region Kilimanjaro Region (''Mkoa wa Kilimanjaro'' in Swahili) is one of Tanzania's 31 administrative regions. The regional capital and largest city is the municipality of Moshi. With a HDI of 0.613, Kilimajaro is one among the most developed regions ...

. In 1977 it was nationalised by the government. This act was reversed in 1984 and KNCU became independent again, although subject to government control of their buying and marketing. Since then, the primary co-operatives and their union have gradually won back their independence. The liberalisation of the coffee industry in the early 1990s saw private companies competing with the cooperatives to buy the coffee of their members. Many cooperatives in

died. KNCU initially lost 80% of its market and struggled for four years. Since 1998, it has steadily won back market share and is now the largest buyer of Kilimanjaro

smallholder A smallholding or smallholder is a small farm operating under a small-scale agriculture model. Definitions vary widely for what constitutes a smallholder or small-scale farm, including factors such as size, food production technique or technology ...

coffee. KNCU has also worked closely with the

Fair Trade Fair trade is an arrangement designed to help producers in developing countries achieve sustainable and equitable trade relationships. The fair trade movement combines the payment of higher prices to exporters with improved social and enviro ...

movement and supplies coffee for the Fair Trade Certified Kilimanjaro Roasted Coffee from

Cafédirect Cafédirect is a UK-based alternative trading organization. History Cafédirect was founded in 1991 by Oxfam, Traidcraft, Equal Exchange Trading and Twin Trading as a response to the 1989 global collapse in coffee prices. Its aims was to "g ...

References

External links

* {{Official, www.kncutanzania.com
Profile of KNCU in Tanzania
Cooperatives in Tanzania Cooperative federations Mount Kilimanjaro Moshi, Tanzania