In July 2004, a
Brazilian scientist, Paulo Mazzafera declared he had discovered a variety of
naturally decaffeinated coffee from 6,000 specimens collected in Ethiopia in
the 1980s. Paulo Mazzafera of the Universidade
Estadual de Campinas in Brazil announced his discovery of the first naturally
decaffeinated arabica plant in the prestigious science journal Nature last
month.
Reuters
reported that Ethiopian officials reacted angrily, saying they had not been
consulted and urging Mazzafera to explain under what conditions he was able to
take 6,000 coffee specimens from Ethiopia in the 1980s.
Mazzafera said on July 13, 2004
reports that he had taken coffee plants illegally from the African country were
"nonsense." He told
Reuters he "had never even been to Ethiopia" and that his find was
based on plants collected by a United Nations scientific mission in 1964-65
with the approval of Ethiopia's King Haile Selassie I.
According to Reuters, the potential money at stake over the rights to
genetic material of the coffee plants, even though the commercial potential of
the wild plants is unknown, was considerable.
But, Ethiopia
didn't take long when it settled for a wishful mutually agreeable solution. "We feel that it is possible for us to come up with
a 'win-win' solution that would benefit both Ethiopia and Brazil," Ethiopian
Prime Minister Meles Zenawi told Reuters in July 2004. In 2007, Meles Zenawi's government further announced that
it is planning to start commercial production of a coffee variety with
naturally low caffeine that was found growing in the wild.
"Coffee research
centres are in the process of planting seedlings of natural coffee with low
caffeine varieties, to enable Ethiopia to supply the world market within the
shortest possible time," said Abera Deressa, State Minister of Agriculture
and Rural Development.
It has been 10 years since the controversy erupted
over the ownership rights for the natural decaf, and more than four years since
Ethiopia announced that its research centers were planting seedlings of the
contested coffee varieties. So far, there is no official statement from either
government on the resolution of the fight and whereabouts of the research
outcome. The coffee varieties' impact on the market remains unknown, but the
untapped potential resources for business and investment opportunities is
undoubtedly compelling.
---
The news articles related to this controversy
are compiled here for the record. Read on.
Natural 'decaf' coffee discovered by
Brazilian scientists
Mike Shanahan
24 June 2004
Brazilian researchers have
discovered a naturally decaffeinated variety of coffee plant. It lacks a key
enzyme that is central to caffeine synthesis, and produces only six per cent of
the caffeine levels found in commercially grown coffee.
The discovery could create a new
market for naturally-decaffeinated coffee, since the industrial processes
currently used for decaffeination causes it to lose important flavour
components.
In contrast, naturally-decaffeinated
crops would "have the full taste of a regular coffee," says lead
researcher Paulo Mazzafera, who adds that the main beneficiaries of the
discovery will be coffee farmers, as they will be able to profit from an
increasing global demand for decaffeinated coffee.
Furthermore, as the Ethiopian plants
are of the coffee species that is most widely grown and consumed in the world (Coffea
arabica), the discovery raises the possibility of transferring this trait
to varieties of coffee currently produced commercially by conventional
breeding.
Previous attempts to modify coffee
by transferring genes from other coffee species have been unsuccessful. And the
researchers say that if the caffeine-free plants had belonged to another coffee
species, breeding a hybrid with Coffea arabica would take more than 30
years.
Living organisms cannot be patented
in Brazil, Mazzafera told SciDev.Net. But cultivars — cultivated varieties —
can be protected under the International Convention for the Protection of New
Plant Varieties.
"It means that no-one else can
commercialise the material," says Mazzafera. "If crops are developed,
we will distribute them to Brazilian farmers in the same way as we already do
with the commercial varieties."
The discovery was made during the
routine analysis of seeds from Ethiopian plants. This, says Mazzafera, highlights
the importance of maintaining and studying seed banks and 'germplasm'
collections of living plant varieties.
"Imagine you have a new disease
attacking a crop," he says. "Good collections of botanical material
make it possible to identify resistant traits in other plants and transfer them
to commercial varieties."
Reference:
Nature 429, 826 (2004)
-----
Decaf coffee brews ownership controversy
Reuters
July 14, 2004
LONDON, England/SAO PAULO, Brazil
(Reuters) -- The discovery of coffee plants with naturally low caffeine and
high sales potential has sparked an international tug of war over their
ownership, according to legal and agricultural experts.
In an industry which the
International Coffee Organization, ICO, estimated in 2002 generated some $70
billion in global retail sales, the stakes are high as Ethiopia challenges
Brazil over the ownership of plants collected from the East African country's
forests.
International conventions
regulating the ownership of indigenous plants seem to favor Ethiopia, one
expert said, but the caffeine-light plants appear to have been collected well
before the rules came into effect.
"The convention is not
retroactive, so the Brazilian may not be bound by it," the legal source
said late on Monday.
Paulo Mazzafera of the
Universidade Estadual de Campinas in Brazil announced his discovery of the
first naturally decaffeinated arabica plant in the prestigious science journal
Nature last month.
Ethiopian officials reacted
angrily, saying they had not been consulted and urging Mazzafera to explain
under what conditions he was able to take 6,000 coffee specimens from Ethiopia
in the 1980s.
But Mazzafera told Reuters on
Tuesday he "had never even been to Ethiopia" and that his find was
based on plants collected by a United Nations scientific mission in 1964-65
with the approval of Ethiopia's King Haile Selassie I.
The area was being deforested and
there was concern over the survival of the native coffee plants, said
Mazzafera. "I doubt these plants exist any longer in the wild."
He said reproductions of the
collected beans went to Ethiopia, India, Portugal, Tanzania and Costa Rica.
"It was from Costa Rica's collection that Brazil eventually got its seeds
in 1973."
Commercial coffee originated in
the high forests of southwestern Ethiopia in a region known as Kaffa, which is
the eponym of the modern drink in many languages.
Win-win solutions
Ethiopia is hoping for a mutually
agreeable solution.
"We
feel that it is possible for us to come up with a 'win-win' solution that would
benefit both Ethiopia and Brazil," Ethiopian Prime Minister
Meles Zenawi told Reuters in Addis Ababa earlier this month.
Mazzafera has been corresponding
with Tsedeke Abate, director-general of Ethiopia's Agricultural Research
Organization, to discuss possible research projects that could be carried out
jointly by the two countries.
"I've proposed searching the
remaining material in the collection that Brazil and Ethiopia still have for
other decaffeinated varieties," said Mazzafera. "And I would like to
see new expeditions in Ethiopia to look for more wild plants."
Experts say the find could have a
significant impact on the world coffee market.
"Naturally occurring
decaffeinated coffee, rather than something occurring through a chemical
process, could provide an important boost to coffee consumption," said
David Hallam, chief of the tropical and horticultural products service of the
United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation.
Decaffeinated coffee now accounts
for about 10 percent of world's multibillion-dollar consumer market.
Experts say naturally
decaffeinated brews could stimulate demand in today's health-conscious market,
as decaffeination can involve treating green coffee beans with a chemical
solvent to remove the stimulant.
The spat has underscored the
potential money at stake over the rights to genetic material of the decaf
plants, even though the commercial potential of them is unknown and a product
could take at least five years to get to market.
Ownership is still unclear. By
generally accepted standards, it is not possible to copyright a living organism
unless it has been genetically modified, like Monsanto Co.'s Roundup Ready
Soybeans.
But determining ownership of the
new beans will be key to developing them into commercially successful products.
Legal and agriculture experts
said that resolving the wrangle surrounding the decaf coffee find could also
help settle the issue of compensation for developing countries for plant
genetic resources found growing in their back yards by scientists from rich
countries.
----
Scientist calls decaf coffee row tempest in teacup
By Reese Ewing
Reuters
July 13, 2004
SAO PAULO, Brazil, July 13 (Reuters) - The Brazilian scientist who recently discovered naturally decaffeinated coffee plants from a collection of wild Ethiopian beans said on Tuesday reports that he had taken coffee plants illegally from the African country were "nonsense."
The spat has underscored the potential money at stake over the rights to genetic material of the coffee plants, even though the commercial potential of the wild plants is unknown and a product could take at least five years to get to market....
SAO PAULO, Brazil, July 13 (Reuters) - The Brazilian scientist who recently discovered naturally decaffeinated coffee plants from a collection of wild Ethiopian beans said on Tuesday reports that he had taken coffee plants illegally from the African country were "nonsense."
The spat has underscored the potential money at stake over the rights to genetic material of the coffee plants, even though the commercial potential of the wild plants is unknown and a product could take at least five years to get to market....
----
Ethiopia
to market natural low caffeine coffee
Reuters
August 16, 2007
Ethiopia plans to start commercial production
of a coffee variety with naturally low caffeine that was found growing in the
wild, the agricultural minister has said.
Decaffeinated coffee accounts for 10 per cent
of total coffee sales in the world, a multibillion-dollar industry. Natural
decaf brews could dominate over the current chemically caffeine-reduced options
in today's health-conscious market.
"Coffee research centres are in the
process of planting seedlings of natural coffee with low caffeine varieties, to
enable Ethiopia to supply the world market within the shortest possible
time," said Abera Deressa, State Minister of Agriculture and Rural
Development.
In July 2004, a Brazilian scientist, Paulo
Mazzafera declared he had discovered a variety of naturally decaffeinated
coffee from 6,000 specimens collected in Ethiopia in the 1980s.
The find sparked a dispute with Ethiopian
authorities who accused him of taking the bushes without permission.
The Horn of Africa country prides itself as
the origin of coffee, said to have originated in the Kafa region, a misty
forested highland region in the south west. The nation is also the continent's
biggest producer and consumer of the bean.
The decaf coffee could prove a hit with
coffee lovers who enjoy the rich aroma and taste but not the caffeine, and
generate much-needed income for poor Ethiopian farmers, economists say.
Abera, who spoke at a coffee research
conference, also urged researchers to seek coffee varieties with higher yields.
"Although Ethiopia is home to arabica coffee
with high generic diversity, the national average yield has not exceeded five
to six quintals per hectare, which is lower than in other coffee producing
countries," he said.
He attributed the low yield to poor
management and lack of initiative owing to low and fluctuating world coffee
prices.
---
Ed's Note: Coffee in Retrospect is a column prepared by Coffee Monitor and Poor Farmer blog to provide context for the current global coffee trade by republishing news articles from the past. In this column, we intend to reprint archived prints by converting images into electronic file formats with careful conformity to originals and, whenever applicable and possible, we provide links to the sources of the information. Meanwhile, responsibility for the contents lies solely with the authors and the views expressed in the articles do not necessarily reflect our opinions.
Ed's Note: Coffee in Retrospect is a column prepared by Coffee Monitor and Poor Farmer blog to provide context for the current global coffee trade by republishing news articles from the past. In this column, we intend to reprint archived prints by converting images into electronic file formats with careful conformity to originals and, whenever applicable and possible, we provide links to the sources of the information. Meanwhile, responsibility for the contents lies solely with the authors and the views expressed in the articles do not necessarily reflect our opinions.
---
No comments:
Post a Comment
Join the conversation