On The Up: Napier man’s mission to replant Timor-Leste coffee forests

Matt Graylee, left, with Raw Material Timor-Leste director Amera Da Costa Alves.

Matt Graylee is something akin to a coffee industry saviour.

The former Napier man is helping struggling coffee growers nearly 6000km away produce disease-resistant, high-yield coffee bean varieties that will double farmers’ production rates and in turn, halve growers’ poverty rates in the country.

Now based in Australia, Graylee is co-founder of Raw Material, a social enterprise that aims to maximise coffee farmers’ profits in developing countries through coffee bought by consumers, giving away 100% of its profits to coffee-farming families most in need across the world.

Over the 12 years, the company has worked with more than 20,000 smallholder coffee producers across Colombia, Mexico, Rwanda, Burundi and Timor-Leste, also known as East Timor, to connect them to specialty coffee markets and build foundations for long-term income stability.

As part of this mission, Raw Material launched the “11 Million Trees” programme, a 25-year effort to help shift the coffee sector in Timor-Leste.

Graylee said the large-scale coffee reforestation and sustainability initiative will revolutionise Timor-Leste’s coffee farming industry.

“It will transform the coffee sector, reduce poverty and build environmental resilience.”

Coffee is Timor-Leste’s second-largest earner, grown by 37.5% of households.

Yet according to Raw Material, most coffee-farming families in poverty are relying on trees that are decades past their prime and growing in depleted soils, producing only a fraction of their potential.

Research from Monash University and the National Coffee Sector Development Plan shows that doubling production would bring poverty among these households down from 50% to 28%.

Coffee cherries are dried at a Raw Material supported coffee farm in Timor-Leste.

Recently, phase two of the 11 Million Trees project completed its fundraising goal on Kickstarter meaning Raw Material can support investment in coffee forest regeneration through renewables, recycling, and upgrading bamboo treatment facilities to replace steel.

The project will also establish a national coffee variety testing forest in the country, which will allow disease and climate-resistant trees to be discovered and develop a large-scale nursery and soil programme for the thousands of families Raw Material already works with in Timor-Leste.

Graylee said that over two weeks, the project managed to reach its target, pulling in about $240,000 across two weeks.

“This Kickstarter was really a way of allowing people in the industry and from people from far away to join in with what we’re doing.”

Although its target has been met, donations are still being accepted at the 11 Million Trees Kickstarter and tier rewards are open until Christmas Eve.

“Planting a tree on behalf of someone is a great gift, when it provides much needed income,” Graylee said.

“Meanwhile the person they buy it for can also name the tree and pop a message on there.”

Jack Riddell is a multimedia journalist with Hawke’s Bay Today and has worked in radio and media in the UK, Germany, and New Zealand.