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Uplifting Rural Coffee Women out of Poverty: KOLTIVA Joins Inspire Africa Coffee Marathon 2025

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Uganda, the second-largest coffee producer in Africa (Businessday.ng, 2025), is standing at the threshold of a major transformation. As the world’s demand for sustainable, ethically sourced coffee intensifies, the spotlight is finally turning to the heart of its coffee supply chain: rural women. These women—who sow, harvest, sort, and sun-dry some of the world’s finest Arabica and Robusta beans—have long remained invisible in trade conversations. But in 2025, that narrative is changing.


The Inspire Africa Coffee Marathon, set to take place at the newly developed Africa Coffee Park in Ntungamo, Uganda, is more than a celebration—it’s a movement. Anchored by the theme “Uplifting Rural Coffee Women out of Poverty”, the event will rally stakeholders across the value chain to recognize and empower women as the cornerstone of Uganda’s coffee industry. Koltiva, a global technology and agritech company with deep expertise in sustainable supply chains, proudly joins this groundbreaking initiative as a sustainability expert and changemaker.


Rural Women: The Soul of Uganda’s Coffee Sector

Despite their vital contributions, rural women in Uganda’s coffee sector often lack access to fair pay, education, land ownership, and market opportunities. Their labor powers a multi-billion-dollar industry, yet their voices are rarely heardat global forums.


The Inspire Africa Coffee Marathon aims to correct this imbalance. Through vibrant cultural showcases, interactive learning experiences, and community-building initiatives, the event will highlight women’s resilience and central role in Uganda’s coffee narrative. More importantly, it will be a platform for strategic action—one that aligns with Koltiva’s mission to create inclusive, transparent, and climate-smart agricultural supply chains.


Africa Business and Investment Forum: Industrialization Meets Inclusion


Held alongside the Coffee Marathon, The Africa Business and Investment Forum 2025 held under the banner “Innovation, Industrialisation, and Value Addition,” reflects Africas’s ambitions to lead the continent in coffee transformation.  But innovation must be inclusive. At the forum, our Business Development Officer, Tarsis Katimbo will represent our company solutions with Africa's industry players and showcase how our company provides critical insights for businesses to achieve transparent and resilient supply chains. More importantly, it ensures that value creation reaches the last mile—where the women work.



Why Traceability is the Key to Women’s Empowerment

In global supply chains, what is measured gets valued. By digitizing farm data and making women’s contributions visible, traceability tools not only protect livelihoods—they uplift them.


Consider this: A coffee buyer in Europe is increasingly mandated by the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) to verify the legality and environmental origin of their beans. Without digital systems in place, women farmers in Uganda risk being excluded from these lucrative markets—not because of product quality, but due to traceability gaps.

Koltiva bridges that gap.


Through satellite mapping, geolocation, and transparent audit trails, we ensure that even the most remote, small-scale, woman-run farm can meet international standards. And by training women in digital literacy and recordkeeping, we transform traceability from a compliance burden into an empowerment tool.


Group of farmers during the harvest of coffee berries, coffee production in Africa

A Shared Vision for Sustainable Development

Koltiva’s participation in the Inspire Africa Coffee Marathon 2025 is rooted in a broader commitment: to end poverty by fixing broken supply chains. This means tackling root causes—like gender disparity, lack of access to technology, and climate vulnerability—while enabling market access, transparency, and shared value creation.


Uganda’s coffee industry stands at a pivotal moment. As it industrializes and modernizes, it must not leave behind the women who form its foundation. Through collaborative platforms like Inspire Africa, and with technological partners like Koltiva, Uganda can chart a path toward inclusive prosperity—one coffee cherry at a time.


The Inspire Africa Coffee Marathon is not just a run through the fields of Ntungamo—it’s a symbolic race toward a future where rural women are seen, heard, and empowered. It is a call to action for policymakers, brands, investors, and technology providers to reimagine the coffee value chain as a vehicle for gender equity and economic transformation.


Let this be the legacy of 2025: when the world stopped seeing women in agriculture as invisible, and started celebrating them as innovators, leaders, and the true future of sustainable coffee.

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