The Region

Long before Dr. Livingston arrived to name Victoria Falls after the queen, the people who had lived around this wonder of the natural world for generations had already named it more appropriately, “the smoke that thunders.” The falls thunder into the Zambesi River, which flows east toward Mozambique. But before the river crosses the border, take a left and head north up the Luangwa River. You’ll move through land rich in biodiversity, including the world’s largest concentration of hippos. As the river meanders and the altitude rises you will eventually arrive at the source of the Luangwa, 1500 meters up the Mafinga plateau, which is also, as it happens, the home of Olam’s 5 coffee estates.

The Northern Province of Zambia shares its borders with Tanzania to the East and D.R. Congo to the North. It also occupies the southern shore of Lake Tanganyika - the world’s longest fresh-water lake, the largest in Africa by volume and also its deepest. The Northern Province has the best conditions for arabica coffee cultivation in Zambia with its relative proximity to the equator and abundant altitude (Mafinga Hills being the highest point in the country at 2,300 masl).

The local economy is dominated by agriculture with coffee being the primary commercial crop, alongside subsistence crops such as maize, millet, groundnuts and beans. The mountainous terrain and lack of transport infrastructure makes this region challenging to work in, but also one most in need of the investment and development which the coffee industry can bring.