The East Africa Commodities Exchange (EAX), the commodity market platform based in Kigali, Rwanda, has announced plans to add coffee and tea to their list of traded commodities.
Currently, the commodities exchange trades Soya, Maize and Sorghum on its platform that connects farmers and brokers, using a NASDAQ application.
The application facilitates it to monitor, communicate and trade with its partners at convenient prices which allow Rwandan farmers to sell at relatively higher prices.
For so long, local farmers have struggled with price fluctuations and losses due to several factors.
For the past four years, EAX has enabled soya, maize and Sorghum farmers from 500 cooperatives to secure bank loans worth $4.7million from using their harvest stock in warehouses as a collateral.
Coffee and Tea are Rwanda’s main export earners. Tea is grown on 26,897ha by 42,840 farmers located in 12 districts of mainly Northern, Western and Southern parts of the country.