Poor Farmer

"You are entitled to your opinions, but you are not entitled to your own facts." - Late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan November 4, 2009 The recent article by Dr. Eleni Gabre-Madhin, founder and CEO of the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange (ECX), titled “ Will The Real Poor Farmer Rise ” and first posted on nazret.com is a praiseworthy contribution to a serious public dialogue on matters of national interest. It is also courageous for a prominent figure who supports the government of Ethiopia to opt to engage in civil dialogue about complex issues in the public domain. This being a new phenomenon in Ethiopia, inability to draw a line between a personal capacity and an official capacity is totally understandable; although, the bar might be higher for individuals who grew up in a society where public dialogues and opinions are at the central core of democracy and who are rather expected to be models of democratic and civil communication, the lack of which has left the whole Afri...

The Ethiopian Reporter October 31, 2009 Since April, the representatives of the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX) and the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) have been holding talks on how ECX will launch and handle specialty coffee trading. Following these talks, the Exchange held the "first ever" specialty coffee event in the country last week where key players in the global specialty coffee industry including the Executive Director and Incoming President of SCAA, Ric Rhinehart, attended the event. Rhinehart briefly spoke with The Reporter's Hayal Alemayehu about U.S. buyers' and consumers' interest in Ethiopia's specialty coffees and the need for ECX to restructure its strategy in order to handle the transaction of Ethiopia's specialty coffees. Excerpts: Ethiopia is the birth place of coffee while the United States is one of the big consumers of the beverage. How much do U.S. buyers and consumers know about Ethiopian coffee and that th...

In her latest article posted on nazret.com, Dr. Eleni Gabre-Madhin, CEO, ECX, called Coffee Politics' blogger (Wondwossen) a "self-appointed coffee tsar," "patronizing," and "ill-informed," who tells "myths." This is an ill-advised public statement, but what is most interesting is that the article, supposedly an expose of the "myths," avoided the central issues discussed on this blog and, where it calls out the issues, it tries to address them in a self-serving and disingenuous manner. Read my response to the article here: Straightening out coffee facts for the record -------- Will The Real Poor Farmer Rise By Eleni Z. Gabre-Madhin* nazret.com A self-appointed coffee tsar in Seattle speaks, rather patronizingly, on behalf of the poor coffee farmer in Ethiopia. In the comfortable latte-infused cafés in which he may post his blogs, things may seem rather different than the reality half a world away in the homelan...

By Jason McLure Bloomberg October 27, 2009 Guna Trading House Plc, owned by Ethiopia’s ruling party, said it plans to become one of the nation’s biggest coffee exporters, raising concern among industry observers that private industry may get crowded out. The company began shipping the beans in July and aims to export at least 12,000 metric tons of coffee in the year through June, Mulualem Berhane, general manager of Guna, said in an interview on Oct. 22 in the capital, Addis Ababa. “We are intending to export to Europe, the U.S. and China,” he said, adding that Guna is among at least four other companies owned by the state or Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s ruling party intend to expand in the industry. Ethiopia, where arabica coffee originated, is Africa’s biggest producer of the crop, which accounts for 26 percent of the nation’s export revenue. The Horn of Africa country shipped 133,993 tons of beans worth $375.8 million last year, according to Trade Ministry data. Only ...

October 26, 2009, Long Beach CA Introduction SCAA was invited by the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX) to attend a working session to enumerate and discuss proposed strategies for specialty coffee trading through the ECX. The meeting was held in Addis Ababa on October 22 and 23 and included representatives from SCAA, CQI, ECX, the Ethiopian coffee trade, and other stakeholders representing a broad cross section of the international specialty coffee trade. This is a brief to cover the main outcomes for this meeting as well as some proposed work that is yet to be finished. Background Approximately one year ago, ECX was established with the stated purpose of improving transparency and efficiency in Ethiopian commodity markets. As a commodity-focused system, the ECX presents unique opportunities and challenges for the specialty coffee industry. The SCAA began interacting directly with ECX last April to address the needs of our sector with the goal of including Specialty Coffee sta...

By Jason McLure Bloomberg October 23, 2009 The Ethiopia Commodity Exchange said it’s taking measures to prevent exporters from tampering with coffee beans in order to sell them on the domestic market, where prices are higher than some types of export coffee. “We’ve seen people try to get their coffee under-graded as local,” Eleni Gabre-Madhin, chief executive officer of the Addis Ababa-based exchange, said in a telephone interview on Oct. 22. “We’ve seen export coffee come in with purposely mixed in impurities.” In one case earlier this year, 30 truckloads of export- grade coffee had low-grade beans dumped into them, she said. Sanctions imposed by the exchange include suspending traders’ membership, while some graders at the exchange have been fired, she said. Ethiopia, Africa’s largest coffee producer, grows about 300,000 metric tons of the beans annually and consumes about half that amount domestically. Government regulations require that the highest-quality beans be expor...

The much anticipated ECX event, termed "ECX Specialty Coffee Event 2009" opened at 9 O'clock local time on October 21, 2009 (October 20, at 11:00 p.m. Pacific time) at the luxurious Sheraton Addis, in the capital city of Ethiopia. According to the program of activities flyer obtained today, the event lasts for four days (Oct 21-24) and includes speeches; plenary discussions; sessions to hear and discuss the findings of the ECX-SCAA Working Group; and visits to ECX trading floor, coffee washing stations, the coffee growing region of Yirgachefe, where ECX inaugurates a regional laboratory located in Dilla, and more. "The purpose of our Event is to highlight how we at ECX think Ethiopia’s producers, traders, and export community can work best with our international buyers to offer our best to the global market," reads ECX's invitation to the attendees. The most valued guests of the event are members of the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA)....