07/02/2025
PNG WAINGAR UPDATE - WATER ACCESS
Hey everyone, this is Zach from One Line Coffee! Last year we started a new Smallholder Fund that has been a passion project of mine for some time. It is a culmination of my travels over the last few years, visiting various origins we source from around the world.
Although coffee comes from different continents, across varying cultures and geographies, smallholders across the world face similar challenges. Outside of adverse weather, most of them revolve around finances, whether it is access to lending (especially at reasonable rates), logistical challenges preventing raw material acquisition, lack of bank accounts, etc.
At One Line, while we do bring in innovative coffees utilizing state-of-the-art processing techniques, these coffees are expensive to buy because they are expensive to produce. There is a reason you do not see these coffees coming from most smallholders, as much as they may want to produce them.
We ensure that a significant portion of our offering list comes from smallholders, whether it is from Mexico, Papua New Guinea, Guatemala, Burundi, Rwanda, the list goes on…
We aim to build sustainable relationships with smallholders, but we know that alone sometimes isn’t enough. With more experience each trip, I thought it was best we start a fund that can be more targeted, and aggressive, to address specific circumstances for smallholders we buy from.
In 2024, I visited Papua New Guinea with , where I fell in love with the community in Waingar Village. This community showed a great commitment to producing quality coffee, but they had a massive challenge: water access. At the time, they had a ditch in the center of the village that would collect water during the rainy season. Otherwise, members would travel some 200+ meters down the mountain and back to collect water with small buckets.
Our goal with Crop to Cup was to fund a water pump, and reservoir to hold water for the village’s consumption and for coffee processing, along with shade nets for coffee drying. That goal became a reality in April when Waingar Village fired upon their new pump and Tuffa Tanks to provide water to the community.
