Poor Farmer

By PETER MWAURA Daily Nation Media April 19, 2008 Intellectual property rights are regarded by many people as food for the rich and poison for the poor. But this is a debatable issue; maybe the topic for another article. What is straightforward in today’s knowledge-driven economies, however, is the role of these rights in development. IPRs protect inventions, scientific discoveries, copyrights, patents, trade marks, industrial designs and, in some cases, traditional knowledge and folklore. They are critical tools in commerce, wealth and knowledge generation. There is evidence that countries which embrace the IPRs grow faster. It is no accident, for example, that the largest number of international patent applications received by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) from developing countries in 2007 were from South Korea (7,061) and China (5,456). The fast-growing countries were followed by India (686), South Africa (390), Brazil (384), Mexico (173), Malaysia (103), Egy...

The Increasing Sophistication of Coffee Drinkers is Good for Producers From The Economist print edition April 17, 2008 ADDIS ABABA COFFEE prices are the highest they have been for a decade. As consumers in India and China develop a taste for the drink, prices are likely to keep rising. Meanwhile something new is happening in developed markets. Europeans, Americans and Japanese are switching to higher-quality coffee. Discerning consumers now demand authenticity: they want stories about where their coffee beans come from. So the best coffees will increasingly be differentiated, like fine wines and spirits, and sold at previously unthinkable prices. The move from instant-coffee powder to luxury beans is in some ways reminiscent of what happened when the Scotch-whisky industry shifted from cheap blends to expensive single malts, each with its own story. But where the whisky revolution was masterminded by distillers, the coffee revolution is a messier insurgency. Gourmets and specialist ...

Fog rolls over the hills in Yirgacheffe on Dec. 7, 2007. Photographer: Michael Tsegaye/ Bloomberg News By Marianne Stigset Bloomberg April 17, 2008 Wearing a gray jacket and white cap to ward off the early morning chill, Bedhane Gambarso plucks ripe, red coffee berries from the trees on his 1.5-hectare (3.7- acre) farm in the hills of Ethiopia's Yirgacheffe region. Gambarso, a 44-year-old former soldier, earned 4,000 birr ($421) last year from his crop, which had to support his wife and eight children until the next harvest. At night, the family shares its one-room hut with two cows and three sheep. Ethiopia, where coffee originated, is trying to boost the incomes of farmers like Gambarso by trademarking its beans, prized for their rich, fruity flavor. Producing nations such as Colombia have followed suit as growers struggle to grab more of the $25 billion consumers spend on premium varieties each year. Success may mean higher prices for lattes and cut profits for companies such ...

A farmer at his coffee plantation. Premium earnings will be buoyed by the rise in global demand. Photo: courtesy of Reuters via Business Daily Business Daily April 14, 2008 Coffee producers are set to continue enjoying premium earnings in the medium term helped by a steady rise in demand for the commodity in the global market. An International Coffee Organisation (ICO) survey shows that though Arabica coffee prices recorded downward adjustments of about five per cent in March, the trend is expected to level out in the coming month as demand improves. Kenya exclusively produces small volumes of the much-sought high quality Arabica coffee. The ICO reckons that continuing fund activity in the commodity markets had triggered price volatility that has surprisingly worked in favour of Robusta producing nations such as Uganda with the prices climbing by as much as 5.6 per cent. “In the space of two days between March 5 and 6 quotations on the New York futures market (ICE) fluctuated by 5.5...

Press Release SCAA April 1, 2008 LONG BEACH, Calif. ---- Demonstrating its commitment to promote sustainability within the specialty coffee industry, the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) is going “green” at its upcoming 20th Annual Conference & Exhibition, May 2 – 5 in Minneapolis, Minn. SCAA is the world's largest coffee trade association. At the SCAA conference, the association’s carbon neutrality program will help offset emissions related to conference travel, lodging and energy consumption. Conference attendees will pay a small tariff to participate in the program, and funds collected from registrants---included in the conference fee---will be donated to the sustainable agroforestry non-profit organization, Trees for the Future, for the purchasing and planting of new trees. SCAA and specialty coffee importer, Sustainable Harvest representatives will provide oversight on funding the project. Additional “green meeting” efforts at the 2008 show, organized by SCA...