Farmers, Government At Odds Over Burundi Coffee Sector Reforms

by Desire Nimubona

Bumper coffee harvests were supposed to fuel Burundi’s recovery from three years of political upheaval.

Tell that to Jean Ntungiyabandi, one local farmer who’s just called it quits. “Coffee, as far as I’m concerned, is finished,” he said. Ntungiyabandi, a father of five who has a small plot in Mwaro, central Burundi, and previously grew as much as 300 kilograms (661 pounds) a year. “I will exploit my land in another way.”

The tiny East African nation, which counts Starbucks Corp. among its customers and gets at least 80 percent of its foreign exchange from coffee, wants to double output by 2023. But delays in local payments are squeezing its 60,000 small-scale producers, complicating plans to revive the economy as Burundi tries to recover from an economic and political crisis that’s claimed at least a thousand lives.

Still, in more than a dozen interviews in seven of Burundi’s 18 provinces, most coffee farmers said they’re determined to stick it out, even as factors including low prices and fertilizer shortages mean they make little or no profit and are unable to hike output.

Coffee-growing, encouraged in Burundi in the 1930s when it was a Belgian colony, is a vital cog in the agriculture-led economy, the smallest in East Africa. More than half the country’s 11 million people depend on it for their livelihoods, and it’s key to plans by President Pierre Nkurunziza’s government to revitalize economic productivity that’s been in the doldrums since deadly unrest flared in 2015 as he secured a third term.

“Farmers are angry because they’re earning little,” said Joseph Ntirabampa, leader of the Coffee Farmers Confederation, which is lobbying authorities to raise the prices paid to producers. He said the average coffee plant produces 800 grams (1.8 pounds) per annual harvest; on a typical 100-tree plot, with the beans bought at 500 francs per kilogram, that can mean income of just 40,000 francs ($22) a year.

“We want the government and partners to invest in coffee by supplying enough fertilizers,” which can increase output from each tree, Ntirabampa said. Authorities pledged in August to invest $81 million in steps including fertilizer distribution.

The industry regulator has accused local buyers’ associations of not exporting some of their purchases, as well as failing to repatriate about $23 million from foreign sales that were made. Both situations, they say, held up farmers’ pay.

Economic growth this year in Burundi is estimated at 0.4 percent by the International Monetary Fund -- and a coffee renaissance may be some way off.

Burundi produced 16,079 tons in 2017-18, some 20 percent more than the previous season, but still about 13 percent less than in 2014-15, according to the central bank.

Immaculate Sindabimenya, a 60-year-old who’s farming a small plot about 40 kilometers (25 miles) from Burundi’s commercial capital, Bujumbura, is among those finding times tough. “What I get from this coffee is not even half of what I spend on maintenance” of the farm, she said. “Sometimes I feel I could quit this.”

Another farmer in Muramvya province, Bernard Ntamagiro, said producers were taking on debt to maintain their fields and sometimes wait more than 10 months to be paid. “Tell me, who can accept this situation?” he said.

Agriculture Minister Deo Guide Rurema has defended the amounts paid to farmers. In an interview with local newspaper Burundi Eco in August last year he said the government’s 2016 decision to set the minimum price at 500 francs per kilogram has protected producers from speculators and that fertilizers are available. Government officials didn’t respond to calls seeking comment.

‘Francois Mbabare, who has a small plot in the central province of Gitega, described the prices paid as “derisory” and said officials should take part in coffee-farming to understand the hardships. “We work for nothing, especially since we’re not allowed to set prices for the coffee we produce ourselves,” he said.

For some farmers like Hakizimana Emmanuelline, who was widowed during Burundi’s civil war in the 1990s, coffee-growing has become so integral to their family and community that they can’t imagine abandoning it. “I can’t do much with the income from coffee, but nor can I live without it,” she said from her farm in Kayanza province in the north of the country. “I am happy to see it even though I benefit almost nothing


Bloomberg

Burundi coffee revenues up 9 percent in January 2012

Burundi's coffee earnings rose 9 percent in January 2012 from the previous month, helped by high volumes of sales, the industry regulator said on February 21.

The coffee producer nation earned $2.4 million after selling 663,000 kg, up from $2.2 million earned in December from the sale of 546,161 kg, said regulator ARFIC.

The average price per kg fell to $3.6 in January, from $4.09 in December and the industry board attributed this to some coffee beans of poor quality sold during last month sale.

ARFIC predicts revenues in the current 2011/12 season would fall to $52.1 million from $82.8 million in the previous crop due to a weak production.

Output is expected to drop to 13,000 tonnes from 24,000 tonnes in the 2010/11 season, due to the crop's cyclical nature and lower yields from old bushes.

The tiny central African country's goal is to increase annual coffee output to between 40,000 and 50,000 tonnes per season in the next five years, by replacing ageing trees with a newer and higher yielding variety.

Coffee is Burundi's top foreign exchange earner and employs some 800,000 farmers in a nation of 8 million people.

BusinessLive

IRRI releases two new rice varieties in Burundi

by Marla Lise

A collaboration between the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and the African country of Burundi has resulted in farmers having two new rice varieties that are set to boost rice production.

AsianScientist (Jan. 3, 2012) – A collaboration between the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and the African country of Burundi has resulted in farmers having two new rice varieties that are set to boost rice production.

The African country of Burundi has been ranked as one of the five poorest countries in the world, with more than 90 percent of the population depending on agriculture for food.

Rice was first introduced in 1890 but only took off as a major food crop and staple in the 1980′s. However, the country’s farmers were not able to grow enough rice to keep up with demand.

Based on a collaborative effort with the Philippine-headquartered IRRI that began in 2008, farmers in Burundi will soon have two new rice varieties, IRRI’s IR77713 and IR79511, which were chosen over Burundi’s local grown varieties because they produce more rice, have higher grain quality, and taste better.

These two varieties can produce one and a half tons more rice than local varieties and they mature two to three weeks earlier, meaning that farmers can grow two crops in the same season.


“I am happy that the varieties I selected are now released. I would like to get seeds now, to be among those who will multiply seeds, so that my income can increase,” said Ms. Scolastique Simbandumwe, one of the farmers who helped pick the new varieties.

The rice varieties were released by IRRI-Burundi ahead of schedule, only after four growing seasons. These varieties are targeted to be planted in the low lying areas around the country in hopes of boosting food production and matching farmer and consumer needs.

“We do, of course, still have a long way to go. We will actively assist Burundi’s Ministry of Agriculture to multiply the seed of these new varieties so that they can reach farmers as soon as possible,” says Mr. Joseph Bigirimana, IRRI’s liaison scientist and coordinator in Burundi.

 IRRI.

African smallscale farmers trained in business skills

Over 400 farmers in DR Congo, Burundi, and Rwanda are poised to benefit from enhanced business and marketing skills thanks to a capacity-building project that aims at increasing their income in a bid to fight rural poverty.

Business plan training is being co-organized by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), the Tropical Soil Biology and Fertility Institute of the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (TSBF-CIAT) and the Institut des Sciences Agronomiques du Burundi (ISABU) in Burundi.

Most small scale farmers in sub-Saharan Africa, who make up a majority of the population and of the poor, lack proper business and marketing skills. Therefore, they are not able to maximize the benefits of their investments and remain poor despite all their hard work.

To address this, the Consortium for Improved Agriculture-based Livelihoods in Central Africa (CIALCA) has been training smallholder farmers to enhance their business and marketing skills to enable them to better manage their farm enterprises and engage with markets to improve their livelihoods.

The training covers a broad spectrum of activities, from basic farm management principles such as farm record keeping and analyzing the profitability of the farm enterprise to identifying good markets and laying out a business plan.

According to one of the lead trainers, Emily Ouma, an agricultural economist with IITA, “With the training, these farmers will be able to determine for themselves if they are making profit or not. If they are not, then they will be able to shift strategies. If they are, then they would be able to plan better to increase their profits even more, for example, through value addition such as sorting, grading, processing, and storing their produce, and selling when supply is low and demand is high.” 

Another facilitator, Eliud Birachi, an agribusiness specialist with of TSBF-CIAT, adds that most smallholder farmers neither keep records nor plan their production, harvesting and sales according to market demand. “Usually they first grow the crops then look for markets,” he says, “It should be the other way around. This often leads to a glut in the market and the farmers are forced to sell their produce at markedly lower prices than their production costs. Obviously this results in huge losses for them,” he said.

The CIALCA project brings together various partners and donors to improve farm level productivity through Integrated Soil Fertility Management and Integrated Pest and Disease Management. Sustainable farm level productivity requires improved commercialization which can be achieved by enhancing farmers’ access to input and profitable output markets. One way to realize this is by building farmers’ entrepreneurial skills.

www.iita.org

Burundi coffee earnings nearly double in March

Burundi's coffee earnings leapt 90 percent in March from a month earlier, as the 2010/11 marketing season drew to a close, the industry regulator said on April 11.

The country's regulator (ARFIC) said the sector collected $7.4 million from the sale of 2.1 million kgs, up from $3.9 million earned in February from the sale of 951,420 kg.

"The beans sold in March were the last ones for the 2010/11 crop. Traders bought everything, even the coffee lots ... of low quality," said a report by ARFIC. "This is why the revenues obtained in March are higher."

The average price per kg fell to $3.50 in March, from $4.14 in February. The coffee regulator attributed the drop to the quality of some beans put on sale.

The latest estimates show the 2010/11 coffee output should fall by 29 percent to 24,000 tonnes, after a disease attacked the commodity in two main growing areas.

Regulator ARFIC had projected production of green coffee would reach 31,000 tonnes this year. The revised figure is, however, still higher than the 6,381 tonnes in 2009/10.

Coffee is Burundi's top hard currency earner and supports some 800,000 smallholder farmers in the landlocked nation of eight million people.

Reuters

To Egypt's chagrin, Burundi joins controversial Nile Basin pact

by Ahmed Zaki Osman


Burundi has officially joined several fellow upstream countries in an alternative Nile Basin initiative, allowing the pact to come into force without Egypt’s approval.

Tensions in the Nile Basin between upstream and downstream countries have long been a key diplomatic issue for Egypt.

Six upstream countries have so far signed on to the Entebbe-based Nile Basin Initiative (NBI), which will establish the Nile Basin Commission, a body mandated with deciding on river projects in basin countries.

“Burundi took advantage of recent political turmoil in Egypt and hurried to sign the initiative. It knows that Cairo has its hands full with domestic issues after the removal of [former president Hosni] Mubarak,” said Amany al-Taweel, an expert in African affairs at the semi-official Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies.

After 18 days of massive protests, sit-ins, marches and civil disobedience, Mubarak was forced on 11 February to leave the office he had occupied for 30 years.

In November, after a meeting with Mubarak, Burundian Presidential Adviser Mohammad Rokara had said that his country would “never take a position that conflicted with Egypt's interests.”

Egypt's population of some 85 million draws about 90 percent of its water needs from the Nile. Officials, for their part, warn that the alternative water agreement would be unable to provide Egypt’s growing population with its water needs beyond 2017.

Critics have often blamed Egypt’s ousted president for ignoring Africa and for failing to deepen Egypt’s strategic ties with the states of the Nile Basin.

Experts also blast Egyptian foreign policy for being slow to deal with perceived threats to the strategically-important river. They accuse it of encouraging Nile Basin countries to seek alternatives to the historical agreements that have regulated usage of Nile water resources for most of the last century.

“Egyptian diplomats go everywhere except Africa. Mubarak was always in Sharm El-Sheikh while his foreign minister [Ahmed Abul Gheit] was touring Europe. There was no interest whatsoever in the African continent,” said columnist and pan-Arab political activist Ahmed al-Gamal.

“It’s time to reconsider Africa as a priority in our foreign policy. We can provide technical assistance for electricity projects and farming expertise on the basis that we are equal. There shouldn’t be a sense of Egyptian superiority,” added al-Gamal.

Hussein al-Otaify, Egypt’s newly-appointed minister of irrigation and water resources, held an urgent meeting with other concerned state bodies. Al-Otaify has said his ministry would draft an “urgent plan of action” in order to deal with the Nile issue, stressing that Egypt planned to take part in several bilateral projects with Nile Basin countries while calling on upstream states to preserve “Egypt’s historical rights in the Nile.”

Last year, after a decade of talks, four upstream basin countries--Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania and Ethiopia--signed a pact allowing for what they said was a more equitable use of Nile water.

Under the Cooperative Framework Agreement, Ethiopia intends to build dams and export power to neighboring countries, while also establishing a host of irrigation projects.

Egypt and Sudan, both of which condemned the pact, have argued that their respective water supplies would be dangerously reduced if upstream countries were allowed to divert the flow of the river without multilateral consultation.

Egypt says that all Nile Basin countries must approve any initiatives involving the river to ensure that its traditional share remains unaffected, in accordance with international treaties signed in 1929 and 1959.

In 1929, imperial Britain, representing a number of Nile Basin countries, signed a deal with the Egyptian government for the distribution of Nile water. The terms of the treaty granted Egypt 55.5 billion square meters of water annually, out of the estimated 84 billion square meters that flow through Sudan every year.

East African countries have long complained about the negative effects of the colonial-era 1929 treaty, which allows Egypt to veto any irrigation or hydro-power projects proposed by upstream countries.

Under a 1959 Nile water agreement with Sudan, Egypt receives the lion's share of Nile water. Sudan, the next largest recipient, is allotted 18 billion cubic meters per year. This means that the two downstream countries account for more than 90 percent of all Nile water.

Such agreements have effectively given Egypt veto rights over all upstream projects.

“Egypt has applied a strategy that puts emphasis on the authority and validity of the traditional treaties of 1929 and 1959,” said al-Taweel.

Egyptian experts argue that disputes between Egypt and Nile Basin countries are of a "technical" rather than “political” nature. They assert that there is more than enough Nile water for all countries of the Nile Basin.

“The foreign policy of post-Mubarak Egypt will not abandon the strategy of commitment to the traditional treaties, but Cairo will show more interest in cooperating--economically and strategically--with other Nile Basin states,” al-Taweel said.

While upstream nations have refused to change the newly signed Cooperative Framework Agreement as per Cairo’s requests, the NBI scheduled an extraordinary meeting in January aimed at changing Egypt’s mind about the accord.

The meeting, however, was cancelled due to Egypt’s popular uprising, but is now slated to take place in Nairobi later this month.

Moreover, an African summit on Nile water usage, originally scheduled to be held in the Ugandan capital of Kampala in January, was also cancelled as a result of recent political turbulence.

www.almasryalyoum.com

Burundi tea revenues up 109 percent in January over year before

Burundi's tea export earnings jumped 109 percent to $1.9 million in January compared with the same month a year ago, thanks to high volumes and a good quality crop, a tea board official said on February 24.

The landlocked country exported 593 tonnes in January up from $908,552 earned in the same period in 2010 from the sale of 326 tonnes, data from the state-run tea board (OTB) showed.

"It is true that the quantity of tea sold in January was high, but the quality of our tea lifted up both prices and earnings," said Remy Ndayininahaze, head of exports at OTB.

Ndayininahaze said the average export price climbed to $3.20 per kg from $2.78 in January last year.

The board says most of the tea sold this month at the regional auction in Mombasa was above $3 per kg due to an improved quality.

OTB forecasts tea output would reach 9,000 tonnes this year, up from 8,016 tonnes in the 2010 season, partly due to an increased use of fertlizers on farms.

The board earned $18.8 million in 2010 from export and domestic sales from $16 million in 2009.

Tea is Burundi's second largest hard currency earner after coffee and supports some 300,000 smallholder farmers in a nation of 8 million people.

Rreuters

Burundi signs accord on use of Nile River water

by David Malingha Doya

Burundi became the sixth nation to sign an agreement on water usage from the Nile River, enabling ratification of an accord that may strip Egypt of its veto power over rights to the flow from the world’s longest river.

“The government of Burundi sent an e-mail to technical advisory committee members confirming they have signed and asked us to join them in congratulating them upon this landmark achievement,” said Shillingi Mugisha, a member of the Nile Technical Advisory Committee.

A 1929 treaty brokered by the former colonial power, Britain, granted Egypt a veto over projects that may alter the flow of the Nile. A 1959 accord between Egypt and Sudan claimed 90 percent of the Nile’s flow for the two countries.

The so- called Cooperative Framework Agreement, signed by Ethiopia, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya in May, will establish a commission to oversee dam building and irrigation development, effectively stripping Egypt of the veto. Almost all of Egypt’s water supply comes from the Nile.

“We are happy to join our colleagues in East Africa in signing this agreement,” Burundian Water and Environment Minister Jean-Marie Nibirantije said in a phone interview today from Bujumbura, the Burundian capital.

Egypt warned in April, before the five countries signed the accord, that it would withdraw from the Nile Basin Initiative, a nine-member convention on cooperation in the Nile basin known as the NBI, if the seven upstream states signed the accord.

A sixth signatory was needed for the CFA to come into force and once it has been ratified by the six national legislatures, a Nile Basin Commission will be created. The remaining upstream nation, Eritrea, wasn’t involved in talks leading to the accord. The CFA states that the commission will resolve the issue of water security in its first six months of operations.

Abdel Fattah Metawie, head of the unit responsible for Nile water in the Egyptian Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation, didn’t respond to e-mailed questions sent today seeking comment. Egypt and Sudan in January asked Nile basin countries to meet to discuss the legal implications of not all riparian states signing the agreement.

“The meeting was postponed because of the political problem in Egypt, but could take place next month,” Ethiopian Water and Energy Minister Alemayehu Tegenu said in a Feb. 22 interview from Goma, in eastern Congo.

The Democratic Republic of Congo, which led a campaign for countries to sign the agreement in 2009, plans to sign the accord at an unspecified future date, Environment Minister Jose Endundo said in an interview on Feb. 22.

Some projects being considered on the Nile include a 60 to 80-megawatt hydropower plant at Rusumo Falls to serve Rwanda, Tanzania and Burundi, according to information from NBI. Building the power-generation plant and cross-border transmission lines over the next four years may cost $350 million, it said.

“For the actual investment projects like irrigation schemes, watershed management, electricity generation and transmission, we estimated the cost at $784 million in 2010,” Khairy Wael, executive director of the NBI, said in a Feb. 22 interview from Goma. “We forecast investment to be $2.4 billion by 2014.”

The Nile River’s average discharge is about 300 million cubic meters per day, according to the website of the Nile Basin Initiative. Ethiopia is the source of about 85 percent of the water that flows to Sudan and Egypt.

“It’s big news for us,” Ethiopian Foreign Ministry spokesman Dina Mufti said by phone today from Debre Zeit, Ethiopia. “We think this is in the interests of Burundi and all riparian countries. We believe it’s even in the interests of Egypt, as this is the only way we can be in a win-win situation.”

Bloomberg

Burundi coffee output may be below forecast after drought

by Fred Ojambo and Fidele Bigiramana

Coffee production in Burundi, which relies on the crop for half its export earnings, may be as much as 26 percent less than forecast this year after a drought cut yields, the industry regulator said.

Output may be 23,000 to 25,000 metric tons, compared with an earlier estimate of 31,000 tons, Jeremie Ndikumana, a marketing officer at the Burundi Coffee Regulatory Authority, known as Ocibu, said in an interview on Aug. 13 from the capital, Bujumbura. The revised forecast is four times higher than the 6,000 tons produced last year.

Yields were lower than anticipated because some coffee trees didn’t fully recover from last year’s drought in the Central African country, he said.

Production slumped in 2009 from 25,000 tons a year earlier because of the drought. Output had risen in 2008 after a 15-year insurgency ended when rebel fighters signed peace accords with the government.

At least 11,392 tons of green beans, or half the revised projection, was processed by Aug. 8, Ndikumana said. Fully washed coffee accounted for 3,946.4 tons, while the rest was semi-washed coffee, he said.

Burundi consumes less than 3 percent of its coffee, which is reaped from March to July, and exports the rest. Agriculture generates about 44 percent of economic output in the East African country, according to the African Development Bank.

Businessweek

IFAD provides Burundi with US$13.57 million for agricultural recovery

The lives and livelihoods of poor rural people in Burundi are set to change for the better thanks to a US$13.57 million grant from IFAD to the Republic of Burundi for the Agricultural Intensification and Value-enhancing Support Project.

The grant agreement was signed in May in Rome by Léopold Ndayisaba, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of the Republic of Burundi to IFAD, and the Assistant President, Finance and Administration Department of IFAD, Jessie Rose Mabutas.

...the average farm size is shrinking, the soil is rapidly becoming degraded and nearly all public land has been distributed or occupied. Food insecurity and malnutrition are becoming chronic for many households. A growing population and the return of hundreds of thousands of refugees have taken a heavy toll on land in Burundi. Population density in some areas exceeds 500 people per km.

The IFAD supported-project will directly reach 30,000 family farms and indirectly 60,000 farming families in the targeted provinces. Under local public-private partnerships, agricultural inputs, service suppliers and merchants will also benefit.

The main target group will be hillside farmers with less than 1 hectare of land and much of the work will involve developing 1620 hectares of new marshlands and rehabilitating a similar sized area in a sustainable manner. The project will help to increase the yields of rice and other food crops, boost the income of poor farmers, improve their food security and nutrition, enhance the status of women and allow producers’ organizations better market access.

To date IFAD has funded eight rural development projects in Burundi for more than US$100 million, excluding other grants provided within the Fund’s post-conflict support mechanism.

IFAD

Burundi: Population growth, poor farming methods weigh on the land

In Busoni, northern Burundi, the Mbarushimana clan is receiving a hard lesson in the limits of natural resources. Three sons, and other relatives, are trying to survive on land inherited from their father, amidst doubts that the small property is up to the task of supporting them.

"We are heirs of a property of one hectare, to be shared between the three of us. We are busy having children in an uncontrolled way. Is this to say that an entire family will live only from one hectare? What will be become of our children?" asks Sylvestre Mbarushimana, one of the sons, who fears the children will become landless.

As with the Mbarushimanas, so with many others in Burundi. Subsistence farmers in this small Central African country are struggling to find land to cultivate.The result? Plots are subdivided to meet the needs of growing families, which over-exploit the portions of land they receive, leading to soil degradation and its attendant problems. Farmers are also starting to plant on barely arable land, areas previously reserved for pasture, and to encroach on forests.

"Agricultural land is not just insufficient, it no longer has the quality necessary to give good harvests," said Salvator Ndabirorere, co-ordinator of the National Programme of Action Against Land Degradation.

Burundi has a population of almost eight million - about double what it was in 1980 - and a surface area of 27,834 square kilometres; this gives the nation a population density of 270 inhabitants per square kilometre, according to government figures. The West African state of Benin, with a similar sized population, has a density of 70 inhabitants per square kilometre.

But for Emmanuel Nshimirimana, an independent environmental consultant, the problems relating to land use cannot be attributed to rapid population growth alone. He claims they are also a result of "lack of agricultural inputs, of the lack of effective equipment, of bad agricultural practices and of a high rate of illiteracy that hampers the receptiveness of the subsistence farmer vis-à-vis innovations."

According to the latest United Nations Human Development Report, Burundi had an adult literacy rate of about 59 percent in 2004. According to the 2006 Human Development Report, Burundi's population is set to top 10 million by 2015, at a growth rate of just under three percent.Failure to address land problems may have consequences that extend beyond soil degradation, to acts of violence, with the legacy of violent ethnic clashes that resulted in more than a decade of civil war from which the country is still recovering.

IPS

Burundi to boost agriculture

Burundi's Second Vice President Mr. Gabriel Ntisezerana has said the country should diversify agricultural and livestock production and control water use in order to transform from subsistence to market agriculture.

Other conditions that must be made conducive are regional integration and the development of communication infrastructure, he said.

According to the government, the agricultural sector accounts for 90% of employment in the country and 51% of GDP. But the majority of people practive subsistence farming, with only 15% of the total of farmers' produce accessing the market.

Coffee and tea are the country's major foreign exchange earners.

The 13 -year civil war in the country seriously affected agriculture. To date, officials say, the sector gets less than 2% support of the national budget. But participants at the forum vowed to ensure that agriculture gets what it deserves in the next financial year.

The forum was funded by the World Bank and was attended by participants from the public and private sector as well as donors and COMESA representatives.

East African Business Week

Starbucks buys more African coffee

Burundi's coffee sector is expected to gain from an expanded export market and international exposure following the entry of giant US coffee buyer, Starbucks, into that market. Starbucks recently said it will work with Burundi coffee farmers to develop and expand the sector. Said to be the world's largest coffee retailer, the company is already partnering with coffee farmers in the region in Tanzania, Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Kenya.

Economists believe coffee, Burundi's largest export revenue earner, has the potential to spur the country's economic growth. The Burundi government is currently facing the difficult task of reviving a shattered economy and building a sense of national unity after a bloody 12-year civil war. The country's coffee market is currently regulated by the Coffee Board of Burundi (OCIBU). The board strives to co-ordinate the coffee sector, as well as to define and promote the commodity's standards.

Recently Starbucks sponsored a delegation from the coffee board to visit its buying centre in Lausanne, Switzerland as part of its effort to assist the Burundi government to build capacity and exposure in the world coffee markets. Starbucks executives will visit Burundi this month to determine the level of intervention required by the industry.

Starbucks has recently embarked on a programme to support the coffee sector in Africa on which its own success is built. The company says in its business reports that Africa is home to the world's finest coffees, and it is increasingly emerging as the continent's biggest buyer. For instance, Rwanda's coffee industry has taken off in recent years with the strengthening of relations between Kigali and Starbucks, the single biggest buyer of the country's coffee. The introduction of Starbuck's new brand "Rwandan Blue Bourbon" in 5,000 of its retail coffee shops has provided the Rwandan coffee industry with invaluable marketing and global exposure. The arrangement with Starbucks was made possible after the US Agency for International Development (USAID) partnered with Rwanda to upgrade coffee farming and processing infrastructure in the country. Demand for the country's coffee is reported to have increased with a major American retail chain, Costco, now selling Rwandan coffee. USAID estimates that about 40,000 of Rwanda's 500,000 coffee farmers have doubled their incomes in recent years.

In Tanzania, Starbucks, has entered into a partnership with the Association of Kilimanjaro Specialty Coffee Growers Association (KILCAFE), a small-scale farmers group launched in 2001, providing fee-based credit and marketing services to the growers. The association is Tanzania's largest farmers' unit with about 80 member-farmer groups representing more than 7,000 smallholder farmers from the Kilimanjaro, Mbinga and Mbeya growing regions. Starbucks is also the Tanzania's biggest coffee buyer and supporter of KILICAFE. Since entering into the partnership, Starbucks has tripled coffee orders from KILICAFE, directly influencing the
income of over 10,000 smallholder coffee producers.

In 2006, Starbucks paid $1.42 per pound for premium coffee, an increase of 36 per cent per pound over the average market price of $1.04 per pound.

Meanwhile representatives of the government of Ethiopia and of Starbucks recently announced that they have completed two days of constructive discussions and the parties have agreed in principle to sign a licensing, distribution and marketing agreement that recognises the importance and integrity of Ethiopia's specialty coffee names.

allafrica.com