Poor Farmer

ECX Boss Resigns By Dawit Taye The Ethiopian Reporter September 01, 2017 Ermias Eshetu, the CEO of the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX), has tendered his resignation letter to the board of directors of the trading enterprise. The resignation of Ermias stunned many as it came at a time when the CEO was attempting to restructure ECX and introduce new trading services and working procedures. Though the resignation of the CEO is not yet made public reliable sources told  The Reporter  that the board of directors of ECX is holding an in-depth evaluation on the executive management including the CEO. Sources said the rigorous evaluation has prompted the CEO to leave his position. According to sources, the board of directors of ECX has accepted the resignation letter of the CEO. However, Ermias would stay in office until the board finds a successor. According to sources, the stringent evaluation held last week lasted until 5PM in the evening. “The evaluation dwel...

-- Africa became a niche producer as Vietnam, Brazil expanded -- Urbanization, staple crops a threat to African arabica output By Innocent Anguyo and Isis Almeida Bloomberg Markets August 2, 2017          Julien Ochala can’t live without his morning cup of Joe. But not just any coffee will do. For the past five years, the 37-year-old physiology lecturer at King’s College London has visited the same store every week to grab a pack of his beloved Kenyan brew. And he’s not put off by the cost: at 37 pounds a kilogram ($22 a pound), it’s more than double a similar supermarket product. "I take Kenyan coffee every morning," said Ochala, who buys his beans from  Monmouth Coffee Company  in Borough Market. "I love it because of the relatively higher acidity level. It keeps me active in the afternoons." Customers willing to pay a premium for African brews, known for their floral, fruity flavors, are driving pu...

Not as transformative as its founders hoped The Economist Feb 4th 2017 |  ADDIS ABABA ON THE walls of the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange (ECX) in Addis Ababa, the capital, hang glossy black-and-white photographs of provincial market towns and rustic life. For the merchants and brokers striding across its high-tech trading floor they serve as a reminder that the ECX, sub-Saharan Africa’s most modern commodity exchange outside Johannesburg, exists for a simple, practical purpose: to transform Ethiopian agriculture. It has some way to go. By connecting smallholder farmers to global markets, the exchange, launched with a fanfare in 2008, was supposed to help reduce hunger. The hope was it would reduce price volatility and incentivise farmers to plant crops. But staple foods such as haricot beans today account for less than 10% of its trade. Its annual turnover—worth about $1bn—is dominated instead by two export crops, coffee and sesame seeds. In 2015, despite a dir...

The Conversation March 23, 2016 Coffee is the drink of choice for millions of us. But the world’s  second-most traded commodity  originates in Ethiopia – and its home is under threat. Ethiopia isn’t all dusty deserts – far from it. The country also contains rugged highlands and lush, tropical forests.  Coffea arabica  grows here in its original, wild form. The forests of south-west Ethiopia are considered to be the birthplace of coffee and the centre of its genetic diversity. But these forests and this gene pool are under pressure. It is already one of the last major woodlands remaining in Ethiopia, and deforestation over the past 40 years has resulted in  the loss of one-third of the south-west’s forest cover . We risk losing the forests entirely in coming decades. It is critical that these forests are protected. Commercially grown coffee has been bred over the years to ensure high yields and other useful characteristics. But it is descend...

Wondwossen's Note:  In 2011, there was a failed attempt in Ethiopia to ship all coffees in bulk. Click   here   to read exactly what happened back then.   ---- Reese Ewing Reuters December 20, 2015 SANTOS, BRAZIL   – The humble jute bag, long the distinctive packing for Brazil's coffee exports, is rapidly being edged out as traders and cooperatives face rising wage bills and borrowing costs, weak global prices and a deepening economic crisis at home. By introducing massive plastic sacks to replace the 60-kg (132-lb) jute bags that have dominated coffee shipments for more than two centuries, firms are saving millions of dollars a year, in a move so successful it is expected to reshape the global industry. Until a few years ago, the world's biggest coffee producer dispatched nearly all its exports in jute bags. Next year will see Brazil export more than half its green coffee in 1-tonne polypropylene 'super sacks' or 21.6-tonne polyethylen...

By Tarikua Getachew Addis Standard November 6, 2015 Ethiopian coffee, long representing close to 30% of the country's foreign exchange earnings, is suffering from neglect by a government that prides itself with achieving more than 10% GDP annual growth. Fifteen million Ethiopians, 20% of the population, depend on coffee production and coffee-related activities, and coffee is cultivated by close to 3.8 million smallholder farming households. But to understand the state of Ethiopian coffee today one will have to imagine Switzerland without its banks and its watch makers. Production of the green Arabica bean in the country is almost exclusively situated in the two regions of Oromia and the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples (SNNPR). Figures also show that the country is the leading producer in Africa of this variety and in 2014 was the seventh largest supplier of green beans in the world. In 2014, Ethiopia earned almost US$889 million in export of raw coffee...

Small farmers in Africa need to produce more. Happily that is easier than it sounds “ There are several reasons for the stagnation in African agricultural productivity but poor policies have played a large role. In many countries state-owned monopolies for the main export crops were established either before independence or soon after. The prices paid to farmers were generally squeezed to create profits that were meant to be invested in other, sexier, industries. Such policies failed to spark an industrial revolution but succeeded in making farmers poorer. ” – The Economist The Economist (From the Sept 19, 2015 print edition) September 17, 2015 ON A hillside about an hour’s drive north of Nairobi, Kenya’s capital, is a visible demonstration of the difference between the miserable reality of smallholder farming in Africa and what it could be. On one side of the steep terraces stand verdant bushes, their stems heavy with plump coffee beans. A few feet away are sickly o...