Global Policy Forum

By Anaclet Rwegayura

Improved quality of coffee is the only option left for growers of the crop in eastern Africa to emerge from the rocky times and better their prospects, market researchers emphasised. Coffee producers and buyers worldwide have failed in their negotiations for the past three decades to agree on ensuring the stability of market prices. As a result, growers are selling the commodity at a loss.

"The market is depressed because producers don't know what the market is looking for and there is no specialty coffee orientation among the producers," argues Fred S.M. Kawuma, executive director of Eastern African Fine Coffees Association (EAFCA). Kawuma blames the current crisis in the regional coffee industry on the lack of supporting policies and poor information flow among all stakeholders.

EAFCA groups Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia, which grow about 15 percent of the world's and 98 percent of African specialty coffees. Speaking at a one-day meeting of the Ethiopian chapter of EAFCA this week, Kawuma expressed optimism about the "tremendous potential to produce more and improve the quality of fine coffees" in the eight countries. EAFCA exports 1.2 million bags of specialty coffee annually, with Ethiopia and Kenya accounting for 80 percent of the lot. Total coffee exports from the region are around six million 90-kg bags, which is 50 percent of all exports from Africa.

The share of specialty coffee on the global market, Kawuma said, has been increasing because of the generally poor quality of other coffee beans. "If EAFCA captures 20 percent of the world's specialty coffees market in the next five years, that means selling 3.06 million bags. We are looking forward to better quality and increased output as farmers respond to the message of improvement," he said.

In this initiative, EAFCA has teamed up with the Regional Agricultural Trade Expansion Support (RATES) programme of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in order to increase productivity and rural incomes. Through its Nairobi-based trade centre, RATES technically supports partner organisations to improve regional capacity to move commodities across borders and internationally to have a direct impact on improving regional food security.

"The cost of coffee production is always very high," said Arnoldo Leiva, general manager of The Coffee Source, Inc. of Costa Rica. "In my country we have taken great steps to eliminate the chances of losing buyers ... because the buyers want the same quality of coffee on a constant basis," Leiva told the meeting.

Currently touring EAFCA member countries under a US Government- funded Coffee Corps programme, Leiva said Costa Rican farmers forecast their cash flows for a number of years because they maintain the standard of their coffees. "Transparency is an important factor in the coffee business and coffee roasters are prepared to pay premiums to producers, provided the desired freshness and flavour are maintained," he added.

With the exception of the world's leading producers -- Brazil and Vietnam -- the coffee sector is in a crisis. Even the United States, a leading coffee buyer, is also "extremely concerned about the situation," remarked Eric Johnson, regional trade economist with USAID in Nairobi. "There is no short-term fix to the problem. We need to address this problem in an immediate fashion," he said, observing that small producer countries could not compete on a volume-to-volume basis with big producers. "However, there is a possibility of competing on the basis of quality," Johnson suggested.

Besides the emphasis on quality that involves consistency, market researchers are suggesting diversification to boost the earnings of coffee growers. "We need to look at other income streams that would bring money into families of small producers," said Johnson, citing Uganda as a success story following the introduction of vanilla as an alternative cash crop on coffee plantations. "We don't mean 100 percent diversification out of the coffee industry for countries that have grown it for generations," he added.

The crisis in the coffee sector in Ethiopia affects almost everybody in the population of 67 million people since an estimated 15 million of them depend on the crop for livelihood. Nearly 100 million people worldwide live off coffee.

Botanical evidence indicates that the coffee plant, 'coffea arabica', originated on the plateaux of central Ethiopia where it still grows wild.

By setting a benchmark of quality so that farmers know what sort of product the market demands, EAFCA member countries look forward to the day when roasters, marketers and consumers around the world would start raving about their specialty coffees.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Global Policy Forum distributes this material without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. We believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C § 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.