Kidichi Farm

meet the farmers

The cooperative we work with in Kidichi is located in what once was the private property of the first Sultan of Zanzibar and Oman.

The site is famous for its Persian bathing houses and lush forests.

It was here that the first clove trees in Zanzibar were introduced in the early 1800s.

The Sultanate is long gone now and the area has been carved up amongst different smallhold farmers, all occupying relatively small pieces of land, but bigger than perhaps in some other areas. This allows us to be able to source spices from single smallhold farms, although they do work within an organic cooperative founded by the experienced agriculturist Mr. Foum Ali Gari, where they receive training in cultivation and processing methods.

The forest in many of these farms is thick and dense, with lush green vegetation. Most of the farmers here practise true agroforestry and you won’t find any neat rows of crops or trees in this area. Most people won’t even realise they are walking in a spice farm, as it feels like walking through a tropical forest. Pepper vines sprawl and climb up any tree they can, and the forests are interspersed with jackfruit, choki choki, durian and cinnamon trees as well as other fruits.

We currently source our black pepper, cinnamon and clove from these farmers and soon we hope to be able to source some beautiful vanilla from Aviwe’s farm, who is expecting her first vanilla harvest next year after meticulously tending to her vanilla plants for 3 years.

Most of the spices are dried in the sun on woven mats, but in the future it is our goal to get a solar drier for them so the spices can dry more quickly, evenly and protected from outside conditions which should lead to an improvement in quality.

meet our Kidichi Farm farmers

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Aviwe Ali Songoro

Aviwe is a farmer who grows many different spices but her main focus currently is vanilla, lemongrass and chillies.Aviwe enjoys her job especially because she receives a lot of support and knowledge from other farmers, which gives her courage to work even harder. We hope to be able to source her first harvest of vanilla very soon.

Ridhwan Amour Ali

Ridhwan was born and raised in the Kidichi village. He is a farmer of spices and fruits and has been for over 20 years. His favourite spice to grow is cinnamon. Ridhwan is very passionate about organic farming and is urging the world to make the switch. He hopes his partnership with Ujamaa will support his efforts to market organic farming and Zanzibari spices to the outside world, while we aim to support him in his goal of getting better access to to a sustainable market and regular fresh water.

Rehema Joni

Rehema was born and raised in Kidichi, and she grows black pepper, cardamom, cinnamon and ginger. Rehema loves her job when she is able to receive customers who can buy her spices, however that has recently proved challenging, especially after COVID.She hopes her partnership with Ujamaa will be able to improve this and enable her to sell her black pepper to markets previously inaccessible to her.
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discover our Kidichi single origin spices