Poor Farmer

Source: IITA (International Institute of Tropical Agriculture) December 11, 2012   Dar es Salaam – Growing coffee and banana together not only generates more income for small-holder farmers, compared to growing either crop alone, but it can also help coffee production to better cope with the effects of climate change, a recent study has shown. The study, which sought to understand the potential impact of climate change on coffee-based livelihoods in the East African highlands, found that the areas suitable for growing Arabica coffee will drastically decrease in the future leading to losses in the region that may exceed US$100 million annually. This is not only a threat to the countries’ foreign revenue, but it also puts at risk the livelihoods of millions of small-holder farmers depending on the crop. The researchers from the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in collaboration with those from the Colombian-based International Center for Tr...

"To leave market participants with no freedom of choice really just replaces previous single channel marketing systems with a new one. The ECX is certainly not an agricultural commodity exchange in the true sense of the word as it is effectively a single channel marketing system for a number of commodities. " This is an excerpt from a n independent study carried out for COMPETE , a program funded by the United States Agency for International Development under the East Africa region. The draft copy of the report titled  COMMODITY EXCHANGES IN AFRICA BEST PRACTICES was filed on the COMPETE AFRICA website on December 6, 2011. Source: COMPETE AFRICA Whilst there is evidence that the ECX has been successful in terms of the volumes and values traded, this needs to be put into perspective as the Government of Ethiopia has legislated that all coffee and sesame trades have to be conducted across the exchange floor, the only exception being producers who can sell into th...

Laboratory Equipment, news on the latest new products and technologies for the lab, had featured Aaron Davis as the Scientist of the Week in last week's edition. Aaron Davis, from  Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and a team found that  coffee in the wild may go extinct in 70 years . The team’s paper can be accessed  here . By Lily Barback Laboratory Equipment Published November 29, 2012 Q: What made you interested in studying how climate change will impact coffee? A:   Various information sources, including anecdotal information from coffee farmers, report that coffee production is being negatively influenced by (accelerated) climate change. However, precise modeling of the influence of climate change on coffee is limited, and there is no data available for indigenous coffee species. Arabica coffee is the most important species for coffee production, and yet it is potentially threatened with extinction in the wild (without factoring-in climate c...

ECX's upcoming procurement bid By Wondwossen Mezlekia November 28, 2012 The Ethiopia Commodity Exchange (ECX) is currently conducting a high-ticket international procurement - the first of its kind since a multi-million dollar bid was busted in 2010 due to alleged fraud and corruption during the bidding process. The bid for the supply, installation, and maintenance of a futures trading software that ECX floated back in 2010 was marred by dishonest maneuvering, seemingly to favor the Sri Lanka based company, Millennium IT, and World Bank withdrew ECX's award proposal and cancelled the loan. The loan was part of what the government had borrowed from International Development Association (IDA) for the purposes of financing the Rural Capacity Building project. [1] Strangely, the said futures trading software was not needed to begin with and would have been running idle today had ECX purchased it in 2010, because the government is, as it has always been, decidedly...

By Emma O'Connor TIME November 25, 2012 Coffee Maker : Gourmands the world over savor the flavor of the coffee known in Indonesia as Kopi Luwak. The coffee gets its taste from coffee berries that the luwak, a kind of civet consumes and then excretes in its stool.  Photo credit: Paula Bronstein / Getty Images via TIME Civet coffee, or Kopi Luwat, was described as the “ rarest beverage in the world ” in the 2007 film  The   Bucket List , and it retails for  £70  ($105) a cup in  London —but a less-than-glamorous scandal may be brewing for the drink. The globe’s most expensive java, which is made from the feces of cat-like mammals called Asian palm  civets , is raising concern among animal welfare organizations,  the  Guardian  reports . Producers of Kopi Luwat, based primarily in  Indonesia , are facing accusations of “ horrific ” abuse against the civets, who are kept in cages and fed a diet comprise...

By J.F. The Economist November 22, 2012 YOUNGER Americans will have to take our word for it: there was a time, way back when Ronald Reagan was president, when your countrymen ordered coffee by simply asking for “coffee”. Ordering a “venti skinny chai latte” or a “grande chocolate cookie crumble frappuccino” would have earned, at best, a blank stare. But that was before Howard Schultz took Starbucks from a single coffeehouse in downtown Seattle to a chain with more than 17,000 shops in 55 countries. The chain grew so quickly, and in some areas seemed so ubiquitous, that as early as 1998 a headline in   The Onion , a satirical American newspaper, joked, “New Starbucks Opens in Rest Room of Existing Starbucks”. After suffering through lean years in 2008 and 2009, the company is again going strong. In the 2011 fiscal year the company served 60m customers per week—more than ever. It also had its highest-ever earnings-per-share ($1.62) and global net revenue ($11.7 billio...

By  Todd Wallack The Boston Globe November 23, 2012 Dunkin’ Donuts won’t be able to claim exclusive­ rights to the phrase “Best Coffee in America.” The Patent and Trademark Office has tentatively   rejected   the Canton-based chain’s efforts to trademark the slogan, saying it is not distinctive enough to qualify for protection. The slogan “is merely laudatory and descriptive,” the agency ruled recently. “Anyone at all can claim that their coffee is the ‘Best Coffee in America,’ ” said a Newton trademark attorney, Zick Rubin. “No one takes such a claim literally, and no one company can monopolize the phrase.” Both Rubin and the trademark office­ noted the ruling has an obvious precedent. The maker of Sam Adams beer, Boston Beer Co., tried to trademark a similar slogan, “The Best Beer in America.” But the trademark office turned down the request, and an appellate court   upheld   the decision in 1999. The Boston brewer has continued to use ...