Mountain Harvest is a coffee company made possible by the generous donors of Lutheran World Relief. And its more than 600 farmers, who live in the Mt. Elgon region of Uganda, grow the coffee beans for Lutheran World Relief, so we thought you might like to know a bit more about this company and what makes it special.

Lutheran World Relief has been working with coffee farmers in Uganda for decades, helping them improve the quality of their coffee and, in turn, their income. For many years, we worked through a coffee cooperative to reach farmers, but a few years ago, we got a different idea.

What if we could work directly with farmers to grow better coffee and sell it to people like you under better terms so that farmers benefit more?

Through the generosity of Lutheran World Relief donors, that’s just what we did – and so Mountain Harvest was born. But it’s not your typical coffee company.

Mountain Harvest is committed to not only improving the lives of coffee farmers, but also improving the state of coffee production in Uganda. The region is known for its coffee, but the coffee market has not always been equitable to farmers. To address that, Mountain Harvest helps farmers learn to perform more of the production steps that follow harvesting coffee, so that they can increase the value of the coffee beans they sell. They also help farmers know how various agricultural practices affect the quality and price of their coffee.

In traditional coffee markets, once farmers sell their beans, they do not benefit from the final sale price of their coffee – which is much higher than what they were paid for their beans. But through LWR Farmers Market Coffee, farmers receive a strong up-front price for their coffee beans and they share in the profit from the sales of their coffee.

And for farmers who depend on their land to support their families, that makes all the difference.