Poor Farmer

By William Davison Bloomberg BusinessWeek July 26, 2013 The value of exports from Ethiopia, Africa’s biggest grower of coffee, fell 2 percent in 2012-13 from a year earlier as a result of declining prices for the beans even as volumes increased, the Trade Ministry said. Ethiopia’s exports declined to $3.08 billion in the 12 months through July 7 from $3.15 billion a year earlier, the Addis Ababa-based ministry said in an e-mailed statement. The Horn of African nation’s $43 billion economy is forecast to expand 6.5 percent this year, faster than the average of 5.6 percent for sub-Saharan Africa, according to the International Monetary Fund. Revenue from coffee exports declined to $746.4 million in 2012-13 from $832.9 million, while volumes jumped 18 percent to 199,104 metric tons, the ministry said. Arabica coffee prices dropped 31 percent in the period, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The price rose 2.9 percent to $1.2480 per pound by the close in Ne...

By Gregory Warner NPR July 22, 2013 As we reported during in April, coffee aficionados for single-origin roasts. The village of Boto in the Ethiopian highlands was selling some of the  cheapest coffee in Ethiopia, the notorious "Jimma 5."  Now it's selling a bean coveted by specialty U.S. roasters, and has  built a road with some of the proceeds. Courtesy of: Gregory Warner/NPR The professional prospectors working for specialty coffee companies will travel far and wide, Marco Polo-style, to discover that next champion bean. But to the farmers who hope to be that next great discovery, the emergence of this new coffee aristocracy is less Marco Polo, more Cinderella: How do you get your coffee bean to the ball? Consider this tale of impoverished Ethiopian coffee growers whose beans once sold for rock bottom prices: The yellowed highlands around the city of Jimma in Ethiopia are where coffee was discovered in the 8 th century. But...

When Dub Hay, Starbucks senior vice present of global coffee procurement, came to the defense of C.A.F.E. Practices following a negative story on the program in Ethiopia in 2007, he responded: "You go to Nariño, Colombia. We built 1,800 [coffee] washing stations and sanitation facilities and homes.... It's literally changed the face of that whole area.... The same is true throughout Latin America. They call it the Starbucks effect." No one I met called it the Starbucks effect. Even the farmers who sell knowingly to Starbucks and those who had received assistance prefer to get their beans certified by and sold to Nespresso, which pays 28 cents more per kilogram. The consensus in this area is that not much has happened with the C.A.F.E. Practices program in the past seven years; but while the program appears to be missing on the ground, it is very present on the company's website, in marketing copy, and in any discussion about its corporate responsibility. ...