Poor Farmer

Moises Araya, 12, picks red ripe coffee beans at a plantation in San Miguel de Naranjo, 37 miles (60km) of San Jose, December 11, 2007. REUTERS/Juan Carlos Ulate By John McPhaul Reuters June 25, 2008 SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (Reuters) - Costa Rican coffee farmers are facing threats from climate change but the rising temperatures are also expanding high-altitude regions where the country's most prized beans are grown. Human emissions of greenhouse gases could cause the earth's surface temperature to rise anywhere between one and six degrees Celsius (1.8 and 10.8 degrees Fahrenheit) over the next 100 years, according to the United Nations, forcing growers of all crops to adapt to new weather conditions. In Costa Rica, the temperature increases may help transform mountainous land that was once too chilly for delicate coffee trees into prime coffee-planting territory. The strictly hard-bean Arabica coffee sought by specialty roasters is only found at high altitudes, so the shift could...

Yan Liang China View June 15, 2008 LUANDA, (Xinhua) -- The Angolan government has recently approved a policy to finance coffee farmers in order to promote coffee cultivation, a senior government official said at the weekend. During his inspection visit to Mucaba, a major coffee growing region in northwestern Angola, at the weekend, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Afonso Pedro Canga told local coffee growers that the government has worked out a program to finance the revival of coffee production in the country. He said the government will carry out the program on the basis of granting micro-credits to coffee growers so as to help them prepare for the coming coffee harvest season and multiply cultivation of coffee in the near future to revive coffee production in the country. "The government has a program of trading and supporting coffee production," he said, stressing that the government is doing its best to help coffee growers to promote coffee production. He ad...

Ethiopia: Intellectual Property Seen Raising Country's Revenues The Daily Monitor (via All Africa) Addis Ababa June 09, 2008 A key report showing how African firms can retain profits said on Friday Ethiopia could set an example on how best to expolit intellectual property to raise export income and alleviate poverty. The report found that effective intellectual property strategies can raise African producers' incomes by up to 320 percent, compared to traditional aid models, which can raise incomes by only about 1.6 percent a year. Light Years IP studied 14 product sectors,and found that some sectors have the potential to increase export income from $1.1 billion per year to between $2.5 billion and $3.5 billion per year. Among the products researched were Ethiopian fine coffee Ethiopian leather, Kenyan tea, Sudanese cotton, and Malian mudcloth. The report outlined a number of areas where African countries could receive more of the value from their products. For instance, Ethiop...

Dominique Patton Business Daily (via AllAfrica ) June 05, 2008 Global sales of fairtrade products jumped by 47 per cent last year, as ethically produced flowers, coffee and other goods reached new markets. Consumers spent more than 2.3 billion on fairtrade goods during 2007, shows a new report from the fairtrade Labelling Organisation (FLO), with premiums earned on the products going to more than 1.5 million producers and workers in 58 countries. Sales have grown especially fast in fairtrade juices, which have almost quadrupled. Fairtrade bananas have increased by 72 per cent while coffee, the first and one of the most established fairtrade products, increased at a steadier pace of 19 per cent. The rapid growth in demand for fairtrade goods is part of a rising trend in ethical awareness in the West. The fairtrade label can only be applied to products that have been certified as ethical, by providing growers with a minimum price for their crop and a premium that is invested in communi...