Our story
We are a Dutch-Ethiopian family, growing specialty coffee and opportunities at our farms. Opportunities for specialty coffee roasters, for our planet, and for the communities we work in. All at the same time. We know that the future of coffee production isn’t certain and we want to do our part to ensure a stronger future.
A factory making fishing rods.
Together we (Hester Westerveld Syoum and Dawit Syoum) founded Bette Buna in 2019 when we inherited a two hectare farm in the village of Taferi Kela in Sidamo, since then we have worked hard to grow our impact and create a roadmap for how coffee businesses can be in Ethiopia, in terms of our approach to job creation and inclusion, as well as their environmental and sustainable practices.
Our background in NGOs and development work taught us a lot and our work with the Joni Foundation which we are co-founders of, taught us the importance of entrepreneurship and helping people through building frameworks for opportunity. We don’t simply want to ‘teach someone to fish’ we want to teach them to build a factory that makes fishing rods.
The meaning of Bette Buna
Along with our farm we inherited values from our parents and grandparents, the name of the company
‘Bette Buna’ means ‘House of Coffee’, we are building a house, where everyone can find a home, a place where together we can develop in safety and happiness.
We are rooted in the communities here, and committed to building a sustainable future. When Dawit’s grandfather passed away in 2019, we saw how dependent the local community was on the farm and how much of a role model he had been, so we decided to take over, learn everything we could, and scale up. That was quite ambitious because although we knew Ethiopia, how community-building works, and how to get people engaged and committed, how to grow a coffee bean into the most delicious coffee is a different matter altogether! A few years on from then and we have learned a lot and begun collaborating with some amazing people within the coffee industry not only here in Ethiopia but internationally. We hope that after reading about our work or perhaps after tasting one of our coffee you will want to become one of our collaborators!
Inclusive growth
We are very aware that we farm within a farming community, our approach is to work collaboratively not competitively with that wider community. This is mutually beneficial as not only will farms thrive around us but if we grow demand beyond our farms supply we are able to buy good cherries from the farms around us. We do this by offering education as well as free seedlings of good varieties from our nursery and by paying price premiums that make it worthwhile for farmers to harvest only the best cherry. In essence our aim is not to simply train or educate so much as facilitate opportunities for people to harness themselves and develop a brighter future.
We aim to improve living standards by teaching on our own farms. These are far reaching from showing the differences that come with growing in sun or in shade, and replacing older heirloom trees with productive known varietals to teaching principles of agroforestry and regenerative farming. We also create awareness of child labour, forced labour and cultivate inclusive working conditions and culture. All of this education and information sharing has the added value of fostering trust and building loyalty. People want to work with us and sell cherries to us because we have established a relationship of open collaboration. We help people grow better cherry and then we pay them a better price for that cherry. We grow our quality and our production and our impact.
We aim to improve living standards by teaching on our own farms. These are far reaching from showing the differences that come with growing in sun or in shade, and replacing older heirloom trees with productive known varietals to teaching principles of agroforestry and regenerative farming. We also create awareness of child labour, forced labour and cultivate inclusive working conditions and culture. All of this education and information sharing has the added value of fostering trust and building loyalty. People want to work with us and sell cherries to us because we have established a relationship of open collaboration. We help people grow better cherry and then we pay them a better price for that cherry. We grow our quality and our production and our impact.
