In August 2018, prices for coffee fell to a record low and the sector has experienced other crises. That, together with climate change, might destroy producer’s livelihoods, global coffee trade and the survival of this highly demanded agro-commodity.

With farmers being the most vulnerable link in the coffee-producing chain, demonstrating how to achieve sustainability at the farm-level is a major focus of this thesis. The literature on overall sustainability for the coffee sector is very thin. This desk-study aims to combine regionally and thematically limited studies to draw one big picture of how the sector could likely be saved. It illustrates the need to incorporate and improve the sector’s chances to face the current problems from public and private actors coordinately.

To reduce the complexity, a case study explains how the current crisis is endangering Rwanda's coffee sector and which of the recent trends could help.