Kigali — Former US President Bill Clinton has pledged to promote a new brand of Rwanda's coffee called, "Rwanda Farmers".

Mr Clinton who was in Kigali recently courtesy of the charity organisation called Clinton Hunter Development Initiative (CHDI) said his aim was to connect Rwandan farmers directly to retail markets through a brand they fully owned.

"I am here as part of my mission to garner support from donors to be able to facilitate more Rwandan coffee farmers whose production would find retail outlets in the United States, the Middle East and high consumer markets," Mr Clinton said. During the visit, he affirmed his $100m commitment over 10 years in Rwanda and Malawi to establish programs that generate sustainable economic growth.

Mr Clinton said by developing the 'Rwanda Farmers' brand of coffee, some 8,700 rural coffee farmers in Rwanda will receive 100 per cent of the gross brand margin. He said that CHDI has brokered a licensing agreement with Scottish-based coffee roaster, Matthew Algie in which the latter will pay a 16 per cent royalty to the farmers' trust for every sale made. CHDI also helped negotiate contracts with retailers.

Matthew Algie sells coffee, manufactures coffee-making machines, tea, and other products such as hot chocolate primarily in the UK and the Republic of Ireland.

Mr Clinton said Matthew Algie has already bought 70 tonnes of the coffee, reportedly at one-third more than the Fair Trade price. The coffee brand is already stocked exclusively in supermarket chain Sainsbury.

OCIR Café, the Coffee marketing and promotion institute in Kigali said working with CHDI, participating Rwandan coffee farmers have been able to expand their production by 20 per cent and increase their revenues by 10 per cent over 2006.

Rwanda is highly reputed for the Blue Bourbon Coffee which has a subtle acidity and a herbal, spicy complexity not typically found in the coffees of East Africa. However the new brand, "Rwandan Farmers" coffee was launched in June 2008 with the help of Mr Clinton and is now being sold in more than 800 retail outlets in Europe.

Rwanda Farmers' Coffee is a brand developed with Rwandan farmers themselves and delivered with the pro bono support of several participants, including BMB Design who worked to develop the brand image and e-commera who are delivering an online presence.

The brand was launched to mark continuing efforts of CHDI to facilitate direct and sustainable impact on poverty alleviation by delivering programmes that focus on export enablement, import substitution and domestic food production at scale.

For more than a year, CHDI has worked with 6,500 coffee farmers to expand their access to financing, improve their production and processing capacity, facilitate international sales, and develop a new "Rwandan Farmers" coffee brand.

Rwandan farmers grow great coffee and deserve all the credit. If they control their own production cycle here then they can fundamentally change the economic prospects of this country," Mr Clinton said.

"Rwandan coffee is very highly regarded by professional coffee tasters and judges but typically farmers just sell their coffee, they could fetch more profit if the coffee was roasted and processed here," he added.

The farmers work in an area which benefits from high altitude, ideal rainfall patterns and good volcanic soils, and now use a 'shade-grown' process, by which other trees are grown around the coffee bushes to protect the crop.

The coffee is said to have a distinctive chocolate note to it. Rwandan coffee first came to prominence six years ago through the London roasters Jeremy Torz and Steven Macatonia. Their Union Hand-Roasted company was probably the first to highlight the possibilities of Rwandan coffee in the post-genocide era.