Muser Coffee: Organic coffee for forest conservation

To protect the forest as well as the cultural heritage of Muser, Mr. Chakkrapong, the village headman, presented an idea to improve the quality of the Musers’ lives with “coffee beans”, following H.M. The King’s advice from 50 years ago. The distinctive feature of coffee from Muser hill is how they grow them. Unlike several long columns in a field of other coffee types, the Musers plant their coffee under forest canopy so that trees don’t have to be cut down, and the shade can alsop rotect it from exceeding sunlight and dew. The coffee trees then flourishingly grow with falling leaves as its natural fertilizer.

This cultivation method encourages farmers’ willingness to conserve the forest for the growth of their coffee trees. It truly is a coffee for nature. They conserve soil, waters, forests, mountains and wildlife in order to maintain the abundance of ecosystem.

The important processes are to expand Muser coffee fields, to encourage Muser farmers to grow coffee trees for a living and conserving forests, and to find new markets for their product.

For many years, the team has been encountering difficulty in selling coffee beans. Muser coffee still lacks of production and quality development. Without an efficient processing machine, the production cost is very high. Additionally the market for Muser coffee is still limited and the Musers may lose their important watershed forest to those who illegally make use of natural resources.      

The Community Service team of Nokhook Group has volunteered to be a fund raising coordinator in Bangkok for the purchase of a color and size sorting machine, and an electric generator. These equipment will strengthen the production and the introduction of this Muser coffee in other areas in order to conserve the watershed forest for the next generations.