BASELINES ASSESSMENT OF COFFEE QUALITY IN ARAKU REGION
Summary Information
· Department: Programme/ GEF India project
· Location(s): New Delhi
· Commitment: (list term if relevant and estimate of days required): up to 90 days
· Desired start date and duration: 15th November 2024
· Under direction of: Senior Project Manager and Manager Market, South Asia
Acronyms
APCNF : Andhra Pradesh Community Managed Natural Farming
GEF : Global Environment Facility
ILM : Integrated Landscape Management
KA : Karnataka
RA : Rainforest Alliance
RA SAS : Rainforest Alliance Sustainable Agriculture Standard
SLM : Sustainable Land Management
ToR : Terms of Reference
UNEP : United Nations Environmental Program
SLM : Sustainable Land Management
LDN : Land Degradation Neutrality
I. About the project
The Rainforest Alliance is the lead executing agency for the Global Environmental Facility funded project “ Transforming agricultural systems and strengthening local economies in high biodiversity areas of India through sustainable landscape management and public-private finance” along with other executing agencies Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare (MoAFW – national nodal agency); Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC); State government of Andhra Pradesh; State government of Karnataka; Rythu Sadhikara Samstha (RySS); Foundation for Ecological Security (FES).
The project operates in two landscapes, selected for their importance for agricultural production, land degradation and biodiversity conservation. In Andhra Pradesh, the landscape covers a 3.775 million ha area within the Eastern Ghats. The landscape covers 901,000 ha of the Western Ghats biodiversity hotspot in Karnataka. It incorporates the major coffee-producing districts in Kodagu, Hassan and Chikmagalur districts and a large area of the Kaveri river’s 81,000 km2 watershed.
The project has broadly four main objectives:
Component 1: Develop policy-level suggestions to integrate Biodiversity and participatory sustainable land management.
Component 2: Sustainable land management at both farm and landscape level
Component 3: Market mechanisms and public-private finance for scaling up sustainable agriculture and landscape-scale SLM
Component 4: Knowledgmanagement and learning
II. Summary of the consultancy:
This study is part of the ongoing GEF-funded SABAL project, initiated by Rainforest Alliance, focusing on improving sustainable agriculture practices and protecting biodiversity in key regions of India, including Araku Valley, Andhra Pradesh. Araku Valley, known for its coffee cultivation, is home to several farmer producer organizations (FPOs). The project's goal is to assess and baseline the quality of green coffee beans produced by these FPOs, with the ultimate aim of enhancing both productivity and sustainability practices in the region.
III. Background
About Rainforest Alliance
The Rainforest Alliance (RA) is an international non-profit organisation working at the intersection of business, agriculture, and forests to make responsible business the new normal. RA is building an alliance to protect forests, improve the livelihoods of farmers and forest communities, promote their human rights, and help them mitigate and adapt to the climate crisis in Asia, East Africa, West and Central Africa, South America, Mexico, and Central America.
Project Overview
The project seeks to address two critical challenges that have a negative impact on India’s environmental health and the well-being of its people: land degradation and the loss of biodiversity. The project also aims at enabling sustainable agricultural production systems, participatory land use management and responsible supply chains to reverse the process of land degradation and conserve biodiversity. In addition to building the skills and knowledge of small farmers, it will harness policy development, market demand and public-private investment to make sustainable land management (SLM) economically viable.
The project aims to demonstrate a model for a supply-chain approach to work within a landscape context, in which people use land according to an agreed plan, and investments by business and financial services organisations incorporate the larger land area beyond the individual farms and supply chains.
The United Nations Environment Programme is the lead GEF Implementation Agency, collaborating with IUCN as GEF co-Implementing Agency. Project activities will be led by Rainforest Alliance and Rythu Sadhikara Samstha, in cooperation with the State governments of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, and partner organisations, which have been selected for their expertise in the project’s approach.
Through this integrated approach, the project aims to deliver significant Global Environmental Benefits: It will directly impact 1,150,000 ha of agricultural land, including the restoration of 75,000 ha of degraded land, and manage 100,000 ha of land for biodiversity and LDN, including conserving 25,000 hectares of HCVF. It will directly benefit an estimated 770,000 people (304,000 women), of which 765,000 are farmers and farm workers and 5,000 are other beneficiaries, including service providers to farmers, community members and other stakeholders who participate in or benefit from the landscape management activities.
At the farm level, two primary SLM practices are endorsed under this project: The first is based on the Rainforest Alliance Sustainable Agriculture Standard 2020 (RASAS2020) in Karnataka (KA). The second is based on Andhra Pradesh Community Managed Natural Farming (APCNF) and/or RA SAS2020 as applicable.
IV. Objectives of the study:
To assess the production , first level processing , warehousing and aggregation practices of the FPOs.
Assess the current management practices of FPOs for implementing processing such as farmer enagement,training, procurement, processing and sales and marketing.
To assess the current quality of green coffee beans produced by the FPOs in Araku Valley.
To identify key factors influencing coffee quality, including cultivation practices, processing methods, and post-harvest handling.
To establish a baseline for measuring future improvements in coffee quality as a result of project interventions.
Provide a guidence document to
a. Scope the market opprtunities for Araku Coffee
b. Key recommendations to improve the coffee quality as per the target markets.
V. Scope of the study
The study will be conducted in 3-4 FPOs whih are the part of the project and their repective farmers, farmer workers, farming housleholds etc.
VI. Deliverables and Timeline
VII. Peer review process, supervision, and RA support
RA’s team member will supervise the consultancy.
RA will evaluate the quality of each deliverable after the submission, before payment for that deliverable. The consultant must ensure the collected information is complete and valid, before delivery to RA.
RA will review each deliverable and will provide feedback within three working days after submission
The consultant will integrate the feedback and deliver the adjusted deliverable within three working days so that payment can be made ASAP.
VIII. Budget and Payments Schedule
The consultant will be paid a total as per the contract , against delivery and acceptance by Rainforest Alliance, of each deliverable mentioned in section VII of the ToR. Subject to receipt and approval by RA of the respective reports the payment can be released based on the following milestones.
IX. Required qualifications and grading criteria
X. Proposal Submission Procedure and Format
Please include the following:
1. A Technical and financial proposal (in a single document) of not more than 10 pages detailing the consultant(s) understanding and interpretation of the ToR, expertise and record of accomplishment, proposed methodology/ approach to carry out this assignment, implementation plan, abridged CVs of proposed personnel you intend to use for this assessment.
2. The financial proposal should be calculated in Indian rupees including all taxes and duties.
3. Interested parties may submit the proposal through the application link only in the website. Proposal submitted to any other means than the application link will not be considered.
4. For any queries you may reach out to bpant@ra.org. Deadline to apply: 28 October 2024.
Thank you for your interest in working with The Rainforest Alliance