Partnering with Dr Christophe Montagnon of RD2 Coffee, one of the world's leading coffee geneticists and agronomists, we want to better understand Yemen's coffee potential so that we can make more informed decisions on our development strategy. Beyond that, with such a deep coffee history, and with practically no scientific research carried out in the last century, we believe Yemen has much to share with the global coffee community and we're excited to be part of that journey of discovery. 

Dr Christophe Montagnon

Dr Christophe Montagnon has over 30 years experience in coffee research and development worldwide. He is the founder and CEO of RD2 Vision, an advisory organisation that works in Asia, East and West Africa and Latin America to support companies on innovations, varieties and agricultural practices and technical assistance strategies to Coffee Development projects. A world renowned coffee geneticist, Dr. Montagnon worked as Chief Scientific Officer for World Coffee Research between 2016 and 2019, where he was responsible for the entire WCR research strategy and portfolio. He successfully led the WCR program to increase volumes of quality coffee through the conception, implementation and delivery of focused, results-oriented coffee research projects and activities. He also built the WCR Climate Research program aimed at developing ‘climate smart’ technologies for adapting coffee to adverse effects of climate change. 

Prior to working with WCR, Dr. Montagnon was the head of coffee and cocoa research at CIRAD, a French research center that works with developing countries to tackle international agricultural and development issues. Dr. Montagnon was responsible for applied agricultural R&D for coffee and cocoa in agronomy but also quality, linking farmers to markets. He was also the CIRAD coordinator for all coffee and cocoa partners, academic and private, worldwide. Between 2007 and 2011, he led a major public-private alliance between ECOM and CIRAD, which represented one the largest programs of technology transfer in the coffee production sector. He assisted in the establishment of the Mexican Coffee Strategic Alliance with 12 academic and private partners under the umbrella of the National Scientific Council of Mexico (Conacyt).

Finally, Dr. Montagnon is a founding member of several coffee initiatives such as the International Coffee Genomic Network (ICGN) and the Committee on Sustainability Assessment (COSA). In 2011, he was awarded by the InterAfrican Coffee Organisation for his contribution to African coffee research and development. He was formerly a scientific adviser to World Coffee Research. He has published two books and over 100 publications on coffee and cocoa science. 

As with the rest of the Qima team, Dr Montagnon is excited to be working on Yemeni coffee because he believes Yemen has unexplored potential to improve the lives of millions of smallholder coffee farmers around the world.