Most smallholder farmers in Sidama learn best by seeing and doing. Yet survival leaves little space for trial and error. Together with Bette Buna, we’re turning their farm into a living classroom: a safe space where up to 50 farmers at a time can observe, compare, and test new farming methods. With side-by-side plots showing different varietals, agroforestry, and soil practices, farmers see the results with their own eyes: transforming learning from words into experience, and experience into progress.

The Demo Farm is already bringing change, but still needs support for new trials, training materials, and infrastructure. Helping more farmers learn, adapt, and thrive.

For years, farmers and field teams at Bette Buna have shared knowledge informally, learning side by side in the fields. Now, we’re developing a farm curriculum for farmers, by farmers. A hybrid learning program built around the agricultural calendar and designed to match real community needs. Using digital tools like radio and TikTok, and organizing 3,500 farmers in groups of 50, we make learning practical, inclusive, and accessible.

We’re ready to begin, and your support can help us train facilitators and expand our reach. Turning shared knowledge into collective impact.

Each year, we reward farmers who take part in our training programs and show commitment to sustainable farming. Together, we distribute 350,000 climate-resilient coffee, food crop, and shade tree seedlings, bred locally in our community nursery to ensure quality and strength.

In our region, improved seedlings are often unavailable, unreliable, or too expensive to access. By producing and providing high-quality plants directly to farmers, we help them renew aging trees, improve yields and quality, and strengthen resilience to a changing climate.

Every year, we rely on donations to cover the cost of growing these seedlings, keeping them accessible and free for committed farmers who work hard to grow both their crops and their communities.

Access to affordable fertilizer is one of the biggest challenges for farmers in our region. Synthetic products are costly, often unavailable, and harmful to soil and income over time. Bette Buna has already started producing its own organic compost and biochar, showing that sustainable alternatives are possible and effective.

Through this project, we aim to extend that innovation to the wider community by developing local hubs where farmers learn to produce organic fertilizer from fruit waste, coffee pulp, spent grounds, and biochar. Together with the Demo Farm as a trial site, we’ll test and improve these methods using soil analysis and hands-on training.

With your support, we can launch the first hubs and help farmers turn waste into growth: improving yields, restoring soil health, and building climate resilience.

Most farmers sell their coffee as cherries, losing both value and traceability. With the Community Wet Mill, we aim to change that; creating a place where farmers can learn, co-produce, and access higher-value specialty coffee markets. Not all farmers will start here; participation is linked to progress in the Grow+ program, ensuring quality and readiness.

The mill will feature resource-efficient innovative equipment using up to 80% less water, and will serve as a learning center for other millers across Ethiopia, demonstrating how responsible business conduct and economic value can grow hand in hand. It will create local jobs, from seasonal work to skilled, permanent positions, motivating youth and encouraging school performance.

The first stage focuses on developing team capacity and technical expertise before investments are made to launch full operations in October 2026. With support, we can bring this model wet mill to life; turning coffee processing into shared value for farmers, families, and the future.

Together with farmers, scientists, coffee experts, and producers from countries like Colombia, we’re developing a Processing Curriculum: A hands-on learning program designed for farmers, by farmers, and co-created with the market. Using visuals instead of text, we make learning accessible to everyone, including those who cannot read or write.

The program focuses on young, talented farmers and emerging millers; those ready to add more value to their coffee through practical, replicable processing methods. It combines global expertise and local practice, building understanding of how processing enables quality, price, and income.

With financial literacy integrated throughout, farmers learn to balance delayed payments with higher-value returns. Driven by long-term collaboration between producers and roasters, this curriculum connects innovation, opportunity, and shared value.

“Buna Tetu” means Come and Drink Coffee, and it’s more than just a phrase. It’s a community methodology first developed in 2013 by Stichting Joni, now brought to life through the Bette Buna Foundation. The Buna Tetu Community Center uses Ethiopia’s traditional coffee ceremony as a tool for dialogue and learning. Where everyone sits at the same level, leaving inequality at the door.

Through community-led workshops and social dialogue sessions, community members come together to discuss challenges and create shared solutions. Emerging trainers, supported through train-the-trainer programs, lead sessions on financial literacy, community savings, gender equality, responsible business conduct, and child labor awareness.

We also run Kids Buna Tetu (or “Cola Tetu”) where children take the lead in discussions about their own futures. These sessions help young voices contribute ideas on education, equality, and opportunity, ensuring the next generation has a say in the changes that shape them.

Different topics and sessions are planned for the coming years, with group sizes ranging from 12 to 50 participants. Your contribution can directly support these gatherings. By sponsoring workshops that build leadership, inclusion, and opportunity.

In many parts of our community, there are almost no job opportunities, especially for those who are often left behind, such as people with disabilities, single mothers, and the elderly. Without work, there is no income, no hope, and no future perspective, deepening cycles of poverty and dependency.

Established in 2021 on the farm of Bette Buna, the Community Seedling Nursery offers a solution; creating permanent jobs and hands-on training for a diverse, inclusive team united by one mindset: working together towards progress.

Here, every team member contributes to producing climate-resilient coffee, shade, and food crop seedlings for the wider community, while gaining skills, confidence, and opportunities to grow. Some have already advanced to team leader roles, inspiring others to follow.

We are now preparing to scale the nursery, improving working conditions, strengthening the business model, and investing in equipment, education, and local distribution outlets. With your support, we can expand this inclusive workplace.

When the coffee harvest ends, income in the community often runs out within months, leaving long stretches of poverty and uncertainty. The Eco-Tourism Project, planned on and around the Bette Buna Farm, offers an alternative: creating new jobs, small enterprises, and sustainable income through community-led tourism.

We’re using business as a tool to create social, environmental, and economic value. Through small-scale glamping stays inspired by traditional Sidama huts, visitors can experience coffee from farm to cup, guided by local hosts who share their knowledge and stories.

Alongside this, we’ll support young talents to develop local tour services and hospitality ventures, keeping value and opportunity within the community. With your support, we can bring this vision to life: a place where meaningful travel meets real impact.