Poor Farmer

Guna Enterprises is one of the "private" companies that are incorporated under EFFORT. The enterprise emerged as one of the major coffee exporters in the country immediately after the government enacted the new coffee law that routed the coffee trade to the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange (ECX). Click here and here and here to read about my comments on Guna and ECX's destructive roles in Ethiopia's private sector. This leaked cable sheds some light on EFFORT's business and the preferential treatments that it receives from the ruling party in Ethiopia: "Seeye [Chief Executive Officer of EFFORT from 1995 until his expulsion from the TPLF in 2001] argued confidently that the business community's perception that EFFORT's and similar EPRDF parties endowments' companies receive preferential access to limited credit and/or foreign exchange stocks, or treatment on government bids and contracts, customs clearance, and import/export license is certa...

Walta Information Centre November 5, 2011 Addis Ababa, November 5 (WIC) – The Eastern African Fine Coffees Association (EAFCE) announced that the 9th edition of the African Fine Coffee Conference and Exhibition will be held in Addis Ababa from 16 - 18 February 2012. The conference and exhibition will be held at the United Nations Conference Centre under the theme: “Ethiopia: The Legendary Land of Coffee. Where it all begun.” More than 1,000 participants, including coffee trader and coffee supplier companies from all over the world, are expected to take part at the exhibition. Trade Minister Abdurahman Sheik Ahmed said at an incident organized to officially declare the launch of the conference and exhibition here yesterday that the event would be a good opportunity for delegates to taste the many varieties that Ethiopia and other fine coffee producing countries have to offer. General Manager of Ethiopian Chapter with EAFCE, Abdullah Bagersh, on his part said...

Cameroon is one of the few African countries which grow both arabica and robusta coffee Xinhua News Agency via Coast Week November 5, 2011 Countryside near Ngaoundal in Cameroon’s Adamawa Province.  Photo: Coast Week/Wikipedia YAOUNDE (Xinhua) -- There has been a significant decline in Cameroon coffee exports in 2010/11 compared to the previous season, with arabica coffee - whose season has already ended - falling by 25 per cent and that of robusta coffee by 31 per cent during the first 10 months, according to official statistics from the National Cocoa and Coffee Board (NCCB) on Tuesday evening. Cameroon is one of the few African countries that grows both arabica and robusta coffee. Arabica coffee is grown only in the high plateau regions of the West and North-West, where it is the main source of income and livelihood, while robusta coffee is cultivated in the West, South-West, Littoral, Center, South, East and Adamawa regions. The arabica coff...

By Heather Walsh Bloomberg November 04, 2011 Nov. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Coffee stockpiles may remain near 11- year lows into next year as Colombia’s Arabica harvest fails to meet forecasts, contributing to a “scarcity” of the bean favored by brewers including Starbucks Corp. Colombia’s year-end coffee crop is falling below “expected volumes” amid “strong” global demand for coffee, said Jorge Vasquez, chairman of Colombia’s National Association of Coffee Exporters, in an interview yesterday in Cartagena, Colombia. “There is a scarcity of coffee worldwide,” he said. In Colombia “you haven’t seen the expected volumes.” Colombia, the second-largest grower of Arabica coffee beans after Brazil, will produce its smallest crop in two years in 2011 after above-average rainfall damaged plants, according to Vasquez. The harvest will likely slide to as low as 8.5 million bags this year, from last year’s 8.9 million bags, he said. Arabica-coffee futures for December delivery ...

By Isis Almeida Bloomberg November 04, 2011 Nov. 4 (Bloomberg) -- The premium buyers are prepared to pay to obtain fine cup coffee beans from top global producer Brazil widened over the past week as sellers held back beans, according to Rio de Janeiro-based broker Flavour Coffee. Fine cup beans were selling at a premium of 5 cents a pound over ICE Futures U.S. in New York in the past week, compared with a premium of 3 cents a pound a week ago, the broker said in a report e-mailed yesterday. Good cup beans, which are a lower quality, were selling at a discount of 10 cents a pound, unchanged from last week. “Producers were not eager sellers,” Flavour said in the report. “Differentials continue tightening up,” according to the report, which referred to the premium or discount paid to get beans in Brazil’s physical coffee market. Brazilian producers still have to sell 10 percent to 15 percent of the 2011-12 crop started in July, Thiago Cazarini, a broker at Varginha...

Fox News - Latino Published November 02, 2011 A group of Latino day laborers have founded Cafe  Chicago , a cooperative that imports organic coffee from  Nicaragua , processes it and sells it creatively - and successfully - to improve their labor, economic and social prospects. "We were looking for a different way to do business and the model came from  Latin America ," Eric Rodriguez said in an interview with Efe. Immigrants from  Ecuador ,  Colombia  and  Mexico , along with several Puerto Ricans, pooled their money and know-how to survive in a labor market shaken by economic crisis. "Cooperatives hold an important place in the countries we come from, and we believe that Cafe Chicago can support us over the long term," said Rodriguez, the executive director of the Latino Union organization that advocates on behalf of day laborers in the Windy City. Rodriguez, who has a degree in managing non-profits from Chicago's North Pa...

Jacqueline Charles jcharles@MiamiHerald.com TheMiami Herald Posted on Tue, Nov. 01, 2011 Coffee farmers and co-op workers prepare to send some of their crop to Japan through the COOPCAB co-op in Thiotte, Haiti on Wednesday, August 16, 2011. Discarded beans picked by coffee farmerArchange Mardi, 51. PATRICK FARRELL / MIAMI HERALD STAFF THIOTTE, Haiti - Connoisseur Osier Jean steps into the sterile room, pauses and clears his mind. With notebook and flavor wheel in hand, he quickly turns to the task at hand – checking the quality. He sniffs, slurps and swirls, allowing his senses to take in the richness. The liquid is not wine, but caffeine rich Kafe Kreyòl, Haitian coffee. It is the country’s latest effort to revive a once-flourishing industry that has been crippled by decades of deforestation, political chaos and crises. For years, bitter poverty and plummeting coffee prices around the world have made it much more profitable for farmers to chop trees ...