More than any other economic activity, the chain "coffee" has built the society and the Government of Kenya (21st world producer). Today, although it is growing tea and horticulture (flowers, vegetables and fruit) that take the lion's share in the country, Kenya remains a major player in the global coffee industry.
 In the 1990s, the global crisis in coffee prices has led to the rapid decline of coffee production, which more than 100,000 tons, fell to about 50,000 tons today. The causes of this decline are: 1) the high cost of production (labor and inputs), 2) low productivity due to aging coffee trees, reducing soil fertility and increased pest pressure and diseases, and 3) lack of market knowledge and marketing skills of farmers' cooperatives to counter the low prices offered by traders, despite the international reputation for quality from an Kenyan coffee.

Despite the recent decline, coffee production remains the main source of income for about half a million small farmers who have less than 2 ha of land (70% of the coffee produced) and it is estimated that 6 million Kenyans depend directly or indirectly of the coffee industry. The main coffee producing regions are: the highlands at the foot of Mount Kenya, the Aberdare Range, Kisii, Nyanza, Bungoma, Nakuru and Kericho. In these regions, farm size decreases rapidly due to population pressure (~ 200 inhabitants / km ²). Indeed, the division of land by inheritance threatens to make the coffee as unsustainable livelihood. To compensate for the revenue loss from coffee, farmers diversify their production and plant more food crops (banana, maize, beans, cabbage, sweet potato, cassava, yam, pepper, tomato and pumpkin). Therefore, farming systems are diverse, ranging from monocultures of coffee grown in full sun (with a few trees of hedges) to more complex systems with food crops associated with coffee plants and shade trees (including trees fruit).

To reinvigorate the coffee industry, the Kenyan government has liberalized the sector via a new Coffee Act, enacted in 2006, opening access to the international market for producers. The obligation to sell through auctions at the Nairobi Coffee Exchange has been suppressed and direct sales permitted. Several national (Constituency Development Fund …) and international (World Bank, European Union, Swiss Cooperation) sources of funding have support this initiative (EU QCPCP project, The Gates Foundation Technoserve project). Recently, the private sector has also started investing in new efficient milling plants in the region and by promoting the development of new coffee standards and brands such as Fair Trade, UTZ, Rainforest, Nestlé or Starbucks. Reinvigorating the coffee sector alone will only contribute partially to improve the conditions faced by many smallholder farmers today (e.g. climatic changes, limited land availability, declining soil fertility, unaffordable inputs, labour scarcity and increased labour costs). They depend more and more on crop diversification (food crops, fruit and timber trees) to try to maintain or improve their livelihoods. Therefore, there is a need for new farming systems guaranteeing increased farm productivity and income stability which put greater emphasis on crop mixtures and system diversification, environmentally-friendly agricultural practices (including agroforestry) as well as enhanced quality to respond to market demands.

The present proposal is in the continuation of the CAFNET project (Connecting, enhancing and sustaining environmental services and market values of coffee agroforestry in Central America, East Africa and India) ending in mid-2011 and financed by EuropeAid (“Environment in Developing countries”) that aimed at promoting agroforestry practices in coffee regions to improve livelihoods of coffee communities by linking sustainable management and environmental benefits of coffee agroforests with appropriate remuneration for producers through better access to markets and payment for environmental services.

Based on this existing partnership between the Mugama Farmers’ Cooperative Union (54 cooperatives of over 120.000 farmers), the Coffee Research Foundation and the World Agroforestry Center (ICRAF), the project aims at developing and promoting agroforestry practices to improve farm productivity and quality not only for coffee, but other agricultural productions (food crops, fruits, fuelwood, timber and other products) while enhancing the provision of environmental services (soil fertility, regulation of pests and diseases, carbon sequestration and water regulation) at plot and landscape levels