Progressive Farmers Cooperative Ltd (PROFACO)

I Paul Bup, the founder of Profaco grew up in one of Cameroon's coffee growing regions. Apart from the coffee farms, coffee trees use to grow around most people's houses just like fruit trees. As kids we used to enjoy picking ripe coffee fruits and sucking the sweet seeds inside.

Low income families used to work at the cooperative and picked coffee along side the kids during the coffee season, some young people got their education as a result of money earned through coffee. My dad was part of a cooperative that focused on helping farmers earn a fair income for their labour.

Having studied and lived in the UK for some years, I would visit Cameroon during vacations. This is when I noticed that all the coffee trees and farms especially where I grew up had reduced or were poorly kept. I became curious as to the reason why and started asking questions. The more I researched the more I became interested and wanted to work with the farmers to improve their livelihood just like my father.

That is when PROFACO was born in 2013 with the aim of empowering farmers to develop their creative and competitive edge.