Located within the famous Sidama coffee-producing region of Ethiopia, the Damo Station works directly
with just over a thousand smallholder producers to mill coffee for export – usually around four to six thousand
tons of coffee each year. Daye Bensa, the exporting organization in Ethiopia, provides assistance to
producers to sell their coffee.
The owner of the mill, Asefa Dukamo, was introduced to coffee at a young age as his parents were
cultivating coffee and other garden crops. In his teens, he began to supply neighboring coffee washing
stations with cherries purchased from nearby relatives and villagers in addition to his own family’s farm. He
realized that there were not many washing stations nearby, and he had to travel great distances to deliver
his coffee. Thus began the idea to construct his own washing station to reduce the travel time for coffee
producers in his region.

Since 1997 he has been dedicated to this task.