Save a Life
The
Christian East African and Equatorial Development Trust
(CEED), is a non-profit organization
committed to developing and maintaining sustainable, income-
generating projects
in poverty-stricken areas of the world. CEED brings together the abundant possibilities
of American financial resources with the equally bountiful natural resources of
a native land.
Many areas in Uganda suffer crushing poverty and deadly but preventable disease.
- One out of every five children will die before his or her fifth birthday because of malaria, AIDS, or malnutrition
- The average wage is less than $1 per day
- Fewer than 1% of homes have electricity
- Fewer than 1% of people have access to clean water
- Life expectancy is just 42 years
- One out of every 22 children has been orphaned by AIDS
CEED chose the Bunyoro-Kitara region of Uganda in which to launch its first project — a coffee farm. Coffee is by far the largest export commodity Uganda, but most coffee growers still live in poverty because of poor technology (e.g., little or no effective irrigation) and dependence on middlemen to sell their products.
Members of CEED have donated their time, energy, and personal funds to doing the following:
- Leasing the property for the farm
- Hiring local workers and managers
- Teaching the people how to drill wells and create an irrigation system
- Plant new crops
- Plant trees to shade the coffee plants
- Install apiaries that house the bees that pollinate the coffee plants
- Harvest the crops
- Dry and process the beans
Every dollar in excess of the cost to grow, ship, process, package and market the coffee is returned to Uganda to be plowed back into the economy to assist in improving the lot of the people at the ground level. No huge overhead, no corruption raking off dollars, just money and programs going directly to the people in the Wambabya region most in need.
Ugandan
Gold Premium™ Coffee is grown on the rolling banks of the Wambabya
River in the heart of Africa.
Ugandan Gold Premium™ is Organic: Our coffee is organically nurtured, using all natural pest control, cow manure and fish meal.
Ugandan Gold Premium™ beans are hand picked, one cherry at a time, not strip harvested. Stripping is used in most plantations where the picker grasps the branch between forefinger and thumb and strips off all the cherries including under-ripe and over-ripe. This compromises the quality of the coffee as no amount of sorting and processing will correct the problem. Our pickers pick only cherries that are ready for picking. That's why the size and quality of the bean is so consistently high.
Ugandan Gold Premium™ coffee is shade grown: Fast growing shade trees are planted along with the coffee. Ugandan coffee thrives with an optimum level of shade from the equatorial sun with a significant quality improvement as a result. Trees also provide habitat for the countless species of birds in Uganda.
Ugandan Gold Premium™ coffee is sun dried: Most coffee today is processed wet. That means the outer hull, which you never see, has been removed by immersing the cherry in water and wet milling the hull to a pulp to release the green bean. The result is a huge amount of effluent which pollutes the rivers and streams of these beautiful coffee growing areas. Sun drying takes longer and is more labor-intensive but it results in the hull drying and splitting which allows it to be removed by dry percussion. The dry hull is also a valuable fertilizer so it is recycled 100%.
Ugandan Gold Premium™
coffee is naturally pollinated: Since African coffee is improved in yield
and quality by pollination, every acre of the Wambabya plantation has a fully
operational bee hive.
Ugandan Gold Premium™ coffee is available in ground or whole bean I pound packages.
Ugandan Gold Premium™
coffee comes comes 5 ways - Ground: Regular Roast, Hazelnut, French Vanilla,
and Decaffeinated.
Whole Bean: Regular Roast.