Hello – and welcome to this month’s African Insights
Blog…which is on the topic of coffee.
Born and Grown in Africa - Coffee:
It is 4 A.M., my day begins. At this stage of my life, I do not need an
alarm to awaken from a sound sleep—my “internal clock” lets me know that
morning has arrived.
I am standing by my espresso machine—having loaded it with freshly ground
coffee -the water is shooting through
the coffee holder. I can smell the scent of freshly brewed coffee. I see
the frothy head, creamlike line forming on top of the coffee cup. I anticipate
tasting it. Then as I sit down to read the morning news on BBC World Service,
I take a sip of my espresso coffee, which someone grew and picked in Africa,
Asia or South America.
I live in a small town on the west coast of the USA that has more coffee
outlets than any other town in the USA on a per capita basis.
Wherever
you go there is an espresso – coffee dispensing station. Every gas station
has a drive through or drive by where my fellow town residents are getting
their caffeine fix, and that is not just in the morning, many of them are
open 24 hours per day. When it comes to Coffee shops we are number four
per capita in the USA.
The reality a lot of people are making money on the sale of coffee—indeed
everyone involved in the coffee industry is making money except the coffee
growers throughout the world and in places where my heart is, Africa.
In African countries like Uganda, Rwanda, Ethiopia, coffee is selling for
50 cents a pound. However, I recently purchased some Ethiopian coffee here
in my town in the USA for around 4 DOLLARS a pound. –and that’s the “low
end” price for this type of blend…you can buy similar coffee from Harare,
Ethiopia for over 10 DOLLARS a pound!
Most of the time I use French roast coffee that boasts on the package “Earth
Friendly-Concern for Nature – Care for People – Respect for Environment.”
All the right words, but to me labels on a package can be like a bumper
sticker—empty words, slogans that are not reality. Advertising on a package
of French Roast coffee just might be simply cheap talk; talk that caters
to the buying public but more often ignores the grower.
I’ve met coffee farmers both in Uganda and Kenya and I can tell you this,
their homes have none of the affluent aura and elegant ambience of a North
American coffee house --affluence all brought about through the sale of
coffee. Yet, in most o
f
East Africa, there are no “trendy” coffee shops—only people (coffee growers)
operating in survival mode. . On an African coffee farm, there’s no discussion
about the latest coffee “specialty”….just concerned discussion about the
falling price of coffee, yet again, and how one will manage to eke out an
existence. In Africa where the coffee is grown, there is a mother wringing
her hands, worrying how to take care of her children for another day since
coffee crops that used to give them enough profit to make a “bare essentials”
lifestyle, are now dragging them into a hopeless, bottomless pit. There
in Africa is a father looking over his coffee farm, hoping for a miracle,
but only find another disappointing season.
Coffee has a long and intriguing history of which most people are unaware.
. Both major varieties of coffee have their origin in Africa. The Arabica
bean comes from the highlands of Ethiopia and from there has been transplanted
throughout the world. . Arab traders took coffee into Yemen and beyond.
It was called the wine nectar of the Islamic world. The Sufis loved it since
it allowed them to gather and worship late at night at their shirk and,
with the aid of coffee, remained awake to seek God with a clear mind.
Mocha in Yemen became the chief trading center for coffee and, although
Yemen grew coffee in abundance, Ethiopian coffee from Africa remained the
best and most sought after and costing more.
Another kind of coffee variety is found in the forests of Uganda and the
Congo –“Robusta” coffee. The Buganda tribe chewed the coffee cherries during
the blood brothers ceremonies in times of old.
Robusta coffee is not the same quality as Arabica, but it grew in abundance;
it too was exported to other places in the world. After the Vietnam War
the World Bank encouraged Vietnam to plant Robusta coffee plants resulting
in a huge infusion of lower grade coffee that caused a reduction in price.
In the 1980’s the USA withdrew its support from the International Coffee
Organization and its International Coffee Agreement which guaranteed a fair
price. Until the demise of this agreement, coffee did not go beneath a dollar
a pound. However, the collapse of the agreement resulted in chaos for the
coffee growers around the world.
Coffee prices in Uganda have plunged to as low as 30 cents a pound. At the
same time, the cost of coffee at Starbucks and your nearest coffee shops
were not reduced accordingly. What does this mean? It means that corporations
like Nestle, Proctor and Gamble, Kraft and Starbucks are getting richer
and richer, while the East African coffee farmers become poorer and poorer.
These African coffee farmers have no answer for their children when they
ask…”where will our next meal come from?”
Coffee has changed the world as we know it. The coffee houses of Europe
were the hotbeds for social change in England, France, Germany and Austria.
Coffee houses were banned by various rulers since they did not a want clear
thinking populace to run them out of office. In America, it is documented
the American Revolution was conceived in a coffee house and, even today,
coffee houses provide places were business is conducted, where the Internet
is accessed, and where people meet for social and romantic interchange.
All of these modern day, trendy coffee “emporiums” are turning out huge
profits for the various coffee shop chains. Not so for the coffee growers
in East Africa.
What will it take to bring some hope for change to the coffee growers of
Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Ethiopia and other impoverished coffee growing nations?
A good beginning would be to give the African coffee farmers and entrepreneurs
“equal access” to the Western markets—African coffee growers are not seeking
handouts or “aid” (which is really a form of international welfare that
enslaves the recipients even more than the slavery of the colonial era)…instead
all they are seeking is access to the coffee consuming countries so their
crops can be sold at a fair price.
Laws are still in existence today that were drafted during the colonial
era hundreds of years ago—these laws restrict the African coffee growers
from roasting or packaging coffee for retail consumption and stipulate they
can only sell the green coffee beans.
African coffee growers believe their coffee to be a quality product that
can be marketed throughout the world—in fact; in a test run in Chin, Ugandan
coffee houses are selling Ugandan coffee rapidly with very favorable response
from the Chinese yuppie coffee drinking public.
Politicos from the Western nations, along with the UN and various NGO’s
purport that Africa needs “poverty reduction”. I’ve not yet met an African
who chanted the mantra. ”Today I am going to work on poverty reduction”.
Africans know their lot in life will improve through material wealth. This
wealth could come from an Africa that is allowed to not only GROW coffee
and other items such as tea and cotton, but to also increase the value of
these products by being allowed to roast, pack and sell the finished product.
African coffee growers need an open marketplace for their crops—along this
line, some hopeful news--just recently a British grocery store chain began
carrying Rwenzori coffee—and it is selling!! This instance clearly illustrates
how Western nations can TRULY aid Africa, not through “hand outs”, but by
empowering African people through unrestricted trade and distribution channels.
As coffee flows north from Africa, goods needed within Africa will flow
south from other countries, thus, poverty within Africa is reduced and new
wealth is created—for both Africa and Western nations.
5 grams of roasted coffee are necessary to make one cup of coffee that sells
for $2 to $3 at Starbucks. 1 pound of coffee can make 100 cups of coffee
that retails for $200 to $300. Green coffee beans are sold for an average
price of 50 cents per pound! And, even more dismal a statistic, the African
coffee growers receive less than ½ of a percent of the cost of processed
coffee!
Hopefully, there will be an ever increasing trend of “sharing the wealth”
through an open marketplace for processed African coffee made by Africans
and distributed throughout the world.
It is 4 A.M. in the morning and once again I am brewing a fresh cup of coffee,
my thoughts go the growers in Africa and “may Trade prevail over Aid and
African coffee growers thrive”…jon.
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Last updated: 05 June 2009
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