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

Zimbabwe's Tea And Coffee Cultivation On The Rebound

Tea and coffee cultivation are experiencing a revival in Zimbabwe's Eastern Highlands.

Most farmers have been taking up tobacco, but this year’s crop has been fetching lower prices. In the Eastern Highlands region near the border with Mozambique, coffee and tea growing is becoming profitable once again.

  “Tea production for the six-month period to March 31 improved by 6percent to 1851 tons,” said Paul Spear, the chief executive of horticultural concern Ariston Holdings.

The company said export prices were strong and favourable for its operations. Any company or business operation that generates forex in Zimbabwe is considered better off at a time the local currency has continued to sag. For Ariston, export sales volumes for tea during the review period strengthened by as much as 18percent, giving the company a much needed financial boost. Prices were also massively stronger too. “Average export prices improved by 13 percent,” said Spear.

Coffee is another crop that is starting to recover in the Eastern Highlands area. Farmers in the area have also received a fresh lease of life after Nespresso launched a coffee product from Zimbabwe last month, putting the country’s prospects and advantages back on the global coffee market.

But the Chimanimani and Chipinge areas, where the crops are grown the most, were recently ravaged by Cyclone Idai and farm and irrigation equipment was destroyed. This has not been a deterrent with Ariston, which is also listed on the ZSE currently processing a $1.5million (R22.15m) insurance claim cover for the tea growing infrastructure that was destroyed.

Zimbabwe has a long history of coffee production and was once one of the producers of Africa’s most sought after coffee varieties. Coffee production from Zimbabwe peaked in the late 1980s, but dropped significantly in the early 2000s because of economic hardship and climate shocks as well as land grabs in 2000.

Full article...

Ethiopia 2019/20 Coffee Exports To Rise To Record High

 Ethiopia, Africa’s top coffee producer, is expected to export a record-high 4 million 60-kg bags of coffee in 2019/20, the U.S. Department of Agriculture attache in Addis Ababa said, as yields improve and the area dedicated to coffee farming increase.
Production of coffee is expected to rise to 7.35 million tonnes in 2019/20, an 1.4% increase from the 2018/19 season. Exports account for just over half of overall production, and are forecast to grow 0.5% in 2019/20 from the previous year to reach 4 million bags. Coffee is Ethiopia’s most important export.

Exporters in the country are facing increased regulation, the USDA said, with the government banning several exporters in recent months for defaulting on their contracts and hoarding beans.

While supplies are greater this year thanks to higher yields due to better rains and the reduced prevalence of disease, the USDA’s forecasted yield of 0.82 tonnes per hectare comes in well below the government’s target of 1.1 tonnes per hectare, the report noted.

And production continues to face the broader threat of farmers switching to other crops.

“One of the major challenges the Ethiopian coffee sector is facing is that many coffee producers, mostly from the eastern part of the country are tearing out the coffee bushes and replacing them with khat, a plant with stimulant properties,” the USDA said.

Meanwhile, domestic demand in Africa’s top coffee consumer is expected to remain robust, with the USDA expecting Ethiopian consumption to rise by 2.4% in 2019/20 compared to 2018/19.

Reuters

Tanzania to earn relatively little from its good coffee harvest

Tanzania is not frequently associated with coffee production, but is one of Africa's  biggest growers after better known producers like Ethiopia, Uganda and Ivory Coast.

The Tanzania Daily News reported that the Tanzania Coffee Board forecasts 55,000 tonnes of coffee exports in the 2012 season, significantly up from 2011's 33,000 tonnes.

Last year's much lower figure was to a large extent due to unusually poor rains. The TCB says good rains this year and better marketing account for this year's higher export figures. 

A TCB official said the forecast 55,000 tonnes of coffee exports was expected to yield the country US$200 million. At an average of US$275, the earnings versus quantities produced shows how just how much countries that export primary products lose out on the international market place. 

It is very little money for a tremendous amount of work. It will mainly be players outside Tanzania who will reap most of the value-chain benefits of the country's hard-work-for-low-rewards

African Agriculture

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

Uganda coffee target for 2015 to be achieved despite challenges

by William Davison

Uganda, Africa’s biggest coffee exporter, is maintaining its target to boost production to 4.5 million bags by 2015 even as it faces challenges from rising temperatures and coffee-wilt disease, an industry body said.

The East African nation plans to begin planting seven strains of Robusta-variety trees that are resistant to coffee wilt, while climate change will partly be combated by irrigation programs, said Edmund Kananura Kyerere, quality and regulatory manager at the Uganda Coffee Development Authority.

“We are still targeting increased production,” Kyerere said. “The target is still 4.5 million bags.”

Uganda exported 3.14 million 60-kilogram (132-pound) bags of coffee in 2011, ranking the country as the world’s ninth- biggest shipper of the beans, according to data on the International Coffee Organization’s website. Robusta beans, which are used in espressos and instant drinks, account for about 85 percent of the nation’s annual production, according to the authority.

Output in Uganda has declined from 4.4 million bags in 1996-97 partly because of damage caused by coffee-wilt disease. The fungus that predominantly affects the Robusta variety of coffee was first detected in Uganda in 1993 and destroyed about 150 million trees, according to the UCDA.

Uganda hopes to plant 200 million trees resistant to the disease “within 10 years,” Kyerere said.

The authority is campaigning to change the “negative image” of coffee among Ugandans, he said. The annual increase in domestic consumption may double to 4 percent next year.

Bloomberg

Tanzania’s Arabica coffee prices rise as season nears end

by Fumbuka Ng'wanakilala

Tanzania's Arabica coffee prices rose at last week's auction, helped by demand from exporters as Robusta coffee stocks began to run out, traders said on February 14.

State-run Tanzania Coffee Board (TCB) said 16,610 60-kg bags were offered at the latest sale and 11,707 bags were sold. At the previous sale, a total of 10,454 60-kg bags were up for sale, with 9,875 bags sold.

No Robusta coffee was on offer as stocks start to diminish.

"Prevailing high demand for coffee is pushing up prices at the auctions. Robusta coffee stocks are almost entirely depleted," said a trader at a coffee-exporting company based in the northern Tanzanian town of Moshi.

Market participants said a rise in world prices last week also drove local prices higher.

"There is good demand for coffee from northern parts of the country. The supply of coffee from southern Tanzania has started to diminish," said Elia Mkwawa, an auctioneer at TCB. "There are about two or three months left until we come to the end of this season ... We expect coffee growers to continue to enjoy good prices in the coming auctions."

Tanzania, which is Africa's fourth largest coffee grower after Ethiopia, Uganda and Ivory Coast, produces mainly Arabica and some Robusta coffee.

Prices of its arabica normally track the New York market, while those of Robusta take direction from London.

TCB expects the 2011/12 (June/April) crop to fall to 45,000 tonnes from 56,247 tonnes in the previous season.

"The overall average price at the Moshi exchange was up by $5.55 per 50 kg for mild arabica compared to the last auction," TCB said.

"Average prices were below the terminal market by $10.18 per 50 kg for mild arabica."

East African coffee is normally packed in 60-kg bags, but prices are quoted for quantities of 50 kg.

Reuters

Mzuzu Coffee in Malawi experiences steady gains

Mzuzu Coffee Planters Cooperative Union in Malawi has in ten years gone from producing 90 tonnes of coffee per year to today’s 450 tonnes per year. Prices for its branded Mzuzu Coffee average US$6 per kg.

Malawi Today reports Chief Executive Officer Harrison Kalua as describing 2011 as one of the company’s best years, with the global coffee outlook promising continuing good prices in 2012.

In 2011 Mzuzu won the Japan External Trade Organization (Jetro) Cupping of Taste of Harvest Coffees competition in Tokyo. The results showed that a sample from Mzuzu Coffee Planters Cooperative of Malawi received the highest score among competing coffees from Uganda, Burundi and Zambia.

Kalua said the company would continue to attend international coffee events as part of its marketing efforts.

African Agriculture

Liberia receives $25 million loan for cocoa, coffee sectors

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) will provide a US$24.9 million loan to the  Liberia to improve food security and reduce post conflict poverty in rural communities.

The loan agreement for the Smallholder Tree Crop Revitalisation Support Project will aim to increase the incomes of cocoa and coffee producers by raising the quantity of produce sold.

The project will revitalize 50 per cent of existing plantations and restore 315 kilometres of rural road networks to improve access to market centres for more than 280,000 people. In addition, the project will strengthen both the private sector and extension services to smallholder farmer cooperatives by the Ministry of Agriculture.

The project will reach out to the most vulnerable rural farming households in Lofa County, where the highest number of smallholder cocoa and coffee producers live; most of Liberia's poor people live in this area. More than 15,000 smallholder cocoa and coffee farmers, of which half are women, will benefit directly from the project.

With this new project, IFAD will have financed 5 programmes and projects in Liberia for a total investment of $38.3 million benefitting 30,000 households.

International Fund for Agricultural Development

Ethiopian coffee exports in sharp decline

Halfway into Ethiopia's fiscal year, only about 20% of the targeted 270,000 tonne coffee export has been shipped.

There is some confusion about the cause of the sharp decline in exports.

About 100 coffee exporters have been suspended from buying coffee from the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange for periods ranging from three to six months by the government, over allegations that they engaged in speculative hoarding of the country's key export.

Analysts say other changes demanded by the government in the trade of coffee, which would effectively require exporters to invest in storage silos, are impractical.

Others maintain the real problem is simply that the US$2.40+/kg price of coffee at the commodity exchange is higher than the international price (New York) of US$2.20/kg. 

According to Addis Fortune website, Ethiopia earned $314 million in the last six months from coffee exports a  6.28 per cent decline over the same period a year ago, quoting figures compiled by the Ethiopian Revenues & Customs Authority (ERCA).

Addis Fortune says Ethiopia exported 196,118 tonnes of coffee valued at $841.7 million dollars in 2010/11, representing more than half of the 370,569 tonne of total production in the country. The rest is used locally.

Talks between government and traders to break the export impasse are on-going, but have yet to yield any concrete results

African Agriculture

Insect experts to help diagnose disease affecting Rwandan coffee

The expertise of entomologists at the University of California, Riverside has a worldwide impact..

Now Thomas Miller, a professor of entomology and a Jefferson Science Fellow, will travel to Rwanda, Africa, to help solve a mystery surrounding the country's specialty coffee sector – a sector that accounts for 26 percent of the country's agricultural exports.

A defect called "potato taste" – thought to be caused in part by the antestia bug – is threatening to deter international buyers from purchasing Rwandan coffee.

"When stink bugs feed on plants, they can affect the taste of the fruit from the plants," Miller explained. "For example, the brown marmorated stink bug feeding on tomatoes changes their taste. Certain tea plants, when fed upon by leafhoppers, produce leaves with improved taste. Much of the underlying reasons for these are not known."

Determining the specific cause of potato taste is a major challenge Miller and Christian Cilas, a French scientist, face after they travel to Rwanda on Jan. 7. Currently, there is no definitive link between potato taste and antestia bug, only hypotheses.

Miller will stay in Rwanda for two weeks – one week will be comprised of meetings, including three national workshops for stakeholders across private sectors, research, academia, and government; the other week will be used in field visits. He expects to get a better understanding of potato taste and its causes, gather samples for analysis in the United States, and begin collaborations with Rwandan scientists.

"We will devise a multi-pronged strategy for ridding Rwanda's specialty coffee of potato taste defect," Miller said. "And we will also assist Rwanda in reaching out and making contacts with people grappling with similar problems globally."

Starting Jan. 9, Miller and Cilas will join a group of researchers from the National University of Rwanda to solve the mystery surrounding potato taste.

The collective effort to eliminate potato taste in Rwandan specialty coffee is being organized under the auspices of the Global Knowledge Initiative (GKI), an international non-profit. Through the Learning and Innovation for Network for Knowledge and Solutions (LINK) Program, GKI helps scientists, innovators, and entrepreneurs worldwide construct purpose-driven networks to tackle challenges like the one Miller and Cilas will confront in Rwanda. A full analysis of LINK Rwanda will enable the international team to maximize efforts and leverage shared resources.

University of California Riverside

Africa's coffee output to rise by a third by 2015

by Beatrice Gachenge

Africa's coffee output could leap by a third within the next five years as farmers scramble to replace mature trees with disease-resistant seeds to cash in on soaring global prices for the beans, a senior industry official said.

Poor prices, drought, disease and political instability in major producers such as Ivory Coast have led to neglect of coffee farms, while some farmers ditched the commodity in favour of planting staple foods such as maize.

But Denis Seudieu, chief economist at the International Coffee Organisation, said that countries like Uganda, Kenya, Cameroon and Tanzania have come up with hardier seedlings that produce higher yields, and are reaching out to new markets.

"If major producing countries aggressively implement and rehabilitate the coffee sector by supporting and trickling benefits to farmers, we are optimistic in five years production will increase by 2-5 million bags," Seudieu said on the sidelines of a coffee conference in Kenya's capital Nairobi.

Seudieu said millions of African farmers stopped growing coffee in earnest between 1980 to 1990 when governments introduced new intermediaries in trading who ate into farmers' incomes, as in the central African nation of Cameroon.

Data from the Inter-Africa Coffee Organisation (IACO) showed Africa's production of the beans has stagnated at 16 million bags of 60 kg each in the last five years, but rose to 18 million bags last year, a 13 percent share in the global market.

In 1980, Africa's global market share stood at 30 percent, and plans are under way to try to restore the lost ground.

Ravaged by years of civil war, Ivory Coast (Cote d'Ivoire), once the fifth largest global coffee producer, has fallen to 11th, but political stability has been restored and farmers are upbeat. New seedlings that will yield coffee beans within two years could turn around their fortunes.

"A country like Cote d'Ivoire used to be a big producer but the political crisis emphasised the already difficult situation in terms of low productivity. It was the poor price at first, then the political situation aggravated it," Seudieu said.

The west African country used to produce 4 million-5 million bags in the 1980s but annual output is now less than half that amount, Seudieu said.

In east Africa, Kenya hopes to pay its farmers more by removing middlemen and letting them sell directly to foreign buyers, Josefa Sacko, the secretary general of IACO said.

Kenya, a relatively small producer of specialty high quality coffee beans sought after for blending with those from other countries, is trying to reverse a trend where coffee output has fallen because farms have been taken up by property developers to cash in on the booming real estate sector.

A new disease-resistant coffee variety named Batian developed by researchers is expected to boost output sharply, and is in demand throughout the east and central Africa region.

Kenyan farmers looking to benefit from high international prices have expressed interest in growing coffee in areas that have previously not produced it, researchers said.

Uganda, Africa's second largest producer after Ethiopia, has widened distribution of varieties resistant to coffee wilt disease to farmers in a country that produced 3.15 million bags in 2010/2011, up from 2.7 million in 2009/2010.

The country is seen as a model for the rest of the continent, because output has been rising gradually.

Reuters

Coffee farmers in Uganda battle to adjust to changing climate

by Bill CorcoranIn a country where political and economic stability have been difficult to sustain, one thing the Ugandan farmer Ngambe Ehab could usually rely on was his region’s annual weather patterns.

Consistent temperatures and rainfall ensured the small-scale coffee and banana producer from Bushenyi district was able to provide for his family at a time when poverty and hunger stalked much of the east African country.

But over the past decade the rising global temperatures predicted by scientists have led to changing weather patterns in Uganda’s mountainous western region, a development that has put the 76-year-old’s five-hectare farming operation at risk.

“In a good year I used to be able to harvest 18,000kg of raw coffee beans,” says Ehab. “But in 2003-4 I was only able to harvest 12,000kg because of poor weather, and we have had a number of bad years since then. So my income is now reduced by a third.”

According to scientists at the Colombia-based International Centre for Tropical Agriculture, some of Uganda’s most lucrative tea- and coffee-producing areas could be wiped off the map if average temperatures rise by an expected 2.3 degrees by the middle of this century.

The region’s farmers are already seeing this prediction become a reality, says Ehab, with drought periods and erratic rainfall creating an environment susceptible to new diseases and pests. “At the moment I am losing half my coffee tree garden, 2,000 trees, each year to the disease coffee wilt, which has affected many farmers in my village in recent years. My banana trees are also affected by a similar disease. I replace the dead coffee trees every year at a cost of 500 Ugandan shillings [15 cent] each to buy and transport, which is expensive,” he says.

To try to mitigate the effects of climate change, Ehab and his 6,600 fellow smallholder farmers at Ankole Coffee Producers Cooperative Union (ACPCU) have introduced a variety of farming practices designed to preserve water and improve soil quality.

Large trees have been planted in their coffee gardens to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions and provide shade for crops; manure and mulch are spread annually to improve the soil quality and save moisture; and trenches have been dug between coffee rows to capture moisture. “With the help of Twin Trading, a UK-registered charity, and the development organisation Fairtrade, we have embarked on a programme that involves tree planting, and educating farmers how to restore their environment if it has been affected by flooding or drought,” says John Nuwagaba, the general manager of ACPCU. “A big part of the project will also focus on protecting our wetlands, which are under threat from people.”

According to Toby Quantrill, head of public policy at Fairtrade Foundation, small-scale farmers are vital for food provision in African nations, so their communities need to develop climate-change mitigation projects to ensure they continue in that role.

This makes establishing the Green Climate Fund – a mechanism that will help developing countries adapt to their changing environment – at the United Nations climate-change negotiations in South Africa essential, he says. “What we are seeing is [that] climate change will return people across Africa, who have managed to extract themselves from crippling poverty, back to a state of dependence on international aid to survive.”

As far as Quantrill is concerned, agriculture needs to be given a high profile at the negotiations, and support for vulnerable small-scale farmers needs to be highlighted under this heading, and addressed through the new fund.

“It doesn’t matter where the funds [for the Green Climate Fund] come from,” he says. “They have to be put on the table in Durban, and we need to ensure the money gets to the people who need it.”

Thousands of kilometres away from Bushenyi, Sidney le Fleur’s fledgling career as a honey-bush farmer near Plettenberg Bay, in South Africa’s Western Cape province, has also come under threat from climate change. In the years after he and his partners established Ericaville Farming Trust, in 2000, everything went according to their business plan, says le Fleur, a descendant of the Khoisan, the region’s indigenous people. The trust even managed to expand its production operation to more than 14.5 hectares by 2005.

“Initially we sold raw product, but after the success of the first few years we started processing the honey bush – which is used in a herbal tea – ourselves through outsourcing and selling it to companies linked to Fairtrade,” he says.

These early successes were quickly tempered by the combination of successive floods and drought that hammered their region over the following five years.

“In the year following the first floods in November 2005 we lost 13 per cent of our honey-bush crop because of recessive water from the floods seeping into the soil. This continuously wet soil gave our plants a disease called root rot, which causes them to decay.

“Each year we lost more and more of our honey bush to the disease until we were down to only seven hectares. We decided to build a dam to try and mitigate the effect of the floods, but then the weather patterns began to change and the flooding stopped in 2009.

“Since then we have been hit by the worst drought in 130 years, which has wiped out another 2.5 hectares of our crop, leaving us down to only 4.5 hectares. Last year we had to replant because we did not have enough honey bush to produce a viable crop.”

Although efforts to develop agricultural strategies to combat rising temperatures and poor rainfall patterns are ongoing, research presented at the Third International Forum on Water and Food in South Africa this month paints a particularly disturbing picture of how climate change will affect the continent’s water sources, crucial for farming. Scientists have found that climate change could significantly alter water flows in Africa’s 10 major river basins, presenting a new barrier to nascent efforts to better manage water for food production.

Particularly alarming are the predicted changes in southern Africa’s Limpopo Basin, home to 14 million people. Here experts found that rising temperatures and declining rainfall over the next few decades would reduce water availability, depressing food production and intensifying poverty.

While it is questionable whether any significant progress will be made at the negotiations in Durban over the coming week, at least a new extreme weather insurance scheme designed to help African countries resist and recover from the ravages of drought will be unveiled.

The African Risk Capacity was developed by the UN World Food Programme. It uses satellite weather surveillance to estimate risk and can trigger readily available funds to African countries hit by severe drought. The creation of this disaster risk pool, says the UN, could save countries up to 50 per cent of the cost of emergency contingency funds while decreasing reliance on external aid.

Irish Times

Food security concern as Kenyan farmers switch from maize to coffee

The switch by many farmers in Kenya's Rift Valley province from staple cereals to more profitable coffee is likely to increase the country's dependence on grain imports and possibly affect food security, agricultural experts have warned.

"It is unsafe to use our land for crops with the hopes of being fed by other countries," said James Nyoro, managing director for Africa of the Rockefeller Foundation, which works to "promote the wellbeing of humanity around the world. What if these countries do not harvest excess for us?"

Kenya will have to import 2.3 million tonnes of cereal during the 2011-2012 marketing year to meet demand, a year-on-year increase of 37 percent, according to the UN Food and Agricultural Organization, which estimated domestic harvests of maize - a staple for 90 percent of Kenyans - at 2.5 million tonnes, down 18 percent because of poor weather.

This import dependency and the threat posed by increased coffee growing could be mitigated with the use of improved inputs by cereal growers, Nyoro said. Another food security specialist recommended improving storage conditions of grain after it is harvested, when some 30 percent of production is traditionally lost.

In the meantime, any additional costs accrued by importing will be passed on to consumers.

"There is inflation already, joblessness and low purchasing power for many Kenyans; if food prices go higher than they have in the recent past then the number of people accessing even two meals a day will be much lower," Nyoro said.

"The Rift Valley is the country's granary; it is where most people get their food from. Increased coffee growing could compromise the country's grain basket," said one food security specialist, who asked not to be identified.

"If we lose significant land in the province to coffee, we have to weigh what we gain in the process. If coffee pays better and farmers can [by investing in inputs] improve the yield of maize crop in the acreage they put under maize, perhaps this could be the trade-off," the specialist said, recommending that the government undertake a feasibility study on the implications of expanding coffee production in the Rift Valley.

A draft of Kenya's land-use policy has been submitted to parliament and has yet to be debated for subsequent enactment.

There is little data available about how much former cereal-growing land in the province is now used to produce coffee. But in just one of its 50-odd districts, Trans Nzoia, the area under maize cultivation has fallen by 450 hectares over the last year, according to an agricultural officer there.

Across the province, areas of coffee cultivation grew by an annual 20 percent over the past two years, said Bonface Wekesa, manager of a new milling plant in the town of Eldoret.

"We have distributed over one million seedlings of coffee over the last one year and have even run short as the current demand stands at double what we have distributed to farmers," Wekesa said, explaining that typically 2,200 seedlings would be planted on each hectare of land.

Coffee offers much better returns to farmers at a time when traditional coffee-growing areas in the centre of the country have been greatly reduced by real-estate developments.

In the past year, more than 2,000ha of coffee-growing land in Kiambu County, which neighbours the capital, Nairobi, have been given over to developers.

Farmers in Rift Valley, according to agronomist Zabron Njoroge, "have been growing a lot of cereals to feed the nation while their pockets are left empty. It is their time to fill their pockets with income from the same farms.

"Maybe it's time the government started massive irrigation in arid and semi-arid areas," he said.

Joseph Kurui, a farmer and father of 10 in Tindiret, in Rift Valley's Nandi County, told IRIN: "I have already planted coffee in 14 [5.7ha] out of my 21 acres [8.5ha]. I am waiting for seedlings to plant in six more acres and will only reserve one acre to plant maize for family consumption."

Whereas 0.4047ha of maize earns him about Ksh25,000 (US$280) coffee delivers 10 times that, he said.

"A serious farmers who follows instructions from agronomists can make even more than Sh500,000 per acre," said Wekesa.

Symon Mahungu, a food and agricultural scientist at Egerton University in Nakuru, Rift Valley's provincial capital, said although coffee's growing popularity could reduce cereal production, it would not affect people's access to food, at least in the province.

"If these farmers are not accessing food through selling their maize but are well fed buying food from the proceeds of coffee, then this means they are food secure," Mahungu told IRIN, adding that food security was not a matter of the amount of food produced from farms but, rather, people's ability to access food.

He added: "Maize has been imported even when local farmers have their granaries full; let them [farmers] grow what suits their pockets best."

IRIN

Fertilizer use, better farming methods can double Uganda’s coffee output: study

 The use of inorganic fertilizers and improved farming practices by small-holder farmers can significantly increase, and even double, coffee production in Uganda -the world’s eleventh largest producer of the crop. This in turn would translate into more income and better lives for the estimated one-quarter of the population economically dependent on the crop in one way or another and a much-needed boost to the country’s export revenue.

This is according to a recent study conducted by researchers at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) which found that farmers of Robusta coffee in Southern Uganda who used Urea fertilizer to address the Nitrogen deficiency in their fields, harvested twice as much coffee beans as those that did not. This applied both when the coffee was grown alone (monocropped) or mixed together with banana (intercropped), a common practice in the country and which a previous study by IITA showed increases incomes for farmers by as much as 50%.

The study also  found that the rate of return for farmers’ investment in fertilizer, using 2006 – 2007 prices, were as high as  545% for Robusta grown together with banana and 305% when grown alone. However, yield increases and profitability of applying nitrogen fertilizer were much lower for Arabica coffee in the Mount Elgon area where the yield increased by an average of 36 % and the rate of return was below 100%.  Nutrient deficiency mapping in the region confirmed that the soils lacked other essential minerals and not just nitrogen.

According to Dr Piet Van Asten, a systems agronomist with IITA Uganda, the current average yield for both Arabica and Robusta coffee at one ton per hectare per year is very low but farmers can easily double their production by using fertilizer and improving current farming practices. However, he says, to get the maximum return out of fertilizer use, it is important to target the nutrient deficiency in a particular area and the type of coffee instead of following blanket fertilizer recommendation. “Arabica and Robusta coffee have different nutrient requirements and nutrient deficiencies vary from place to place. Yet the current fertilizer recommendations for the crop are not specific to the coffee type nor region,” he says.

Godfrey Senabulya, 45, from Bukomansimbi district in Uganda, was one of farmers involved in the study who is making much more money than before from his coffee farming by using fertilizer and improved farming practices.  He started using fertilizers in 2006 after attending various trainings conducted under Agricultural Productivity Enhancement Program (APEP) funded by USAID in 2005 and 2006.

Senabulya says he is able to comfortably feed and educate his seven children with the earnings from coffee and has greatly improved his house and farm. He therefore advices farmers that good farming practices and the use of fertilizers pays. “Farmers should not be scared of using fertilizers. They should go for training to learn how and which fertilizers to use and they will see the difference,’ he says.

The low fertilizer usage was attributed to high fertilizer prices, poor supply, and differences in farmer resource endowments.  The study showed that reduction in fertilizer prices and increase in coffee prices would make fertilizer use more acceptable even in Arabica growing region.

The research was funded by USAID through the Agricultural Productivity Enhancement Program (APEP).  The study findings are also in line with a similar study led by van Asten and Lydia Wairegi, a PhD student at Makerere University which showed that moderate use of mineral fertilizers could double the production of East African highland bananas in Uganda.

New Times

Uganda coffee exports, September 2011

Uganda exported 340,378 bags of coffee weighing 60-kg each in September, up from 169,728 bags in the same month last year, a source at the Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA) said on Friday.

The rise was due to good rains and to exporters clearing warehouses of old stock to make room for the new crop.

"Farmers and exporters are clearing their warehouses of old stocks to create room for a new crop and that explains the huge jump in exports. Also the crop in the second half of this coffee year (Oct-Sep) matured under sufficient rains which made it good," the source said.

South and southwestern Uganda account for 45 percent of Uganda's annual coffee production while central and the eastern parts of the country account for the rest.

Uganda, which mainly cultivates robusta, is Africa's leading exporter of the beans and their earnings are a major source of foreign exchange. It forecasts it will export 3 million bags in the 2011/2012 (Oct-Sept) season.

New Vision

Uganda coffee price boom

Prices of Arabica coffee have risen again in Bugisu region, eastern Uganda, despite earlier predictions from the Uganda Coffee Development Authority that the bumper season would be affected by the landslide tragedies nearly two months ago.

The price increment comes in the wake of the August 29 landslides in Bulambuli district that left scores of villagers dead and around 1,300 acres of coffee plantations destroyed.

The UCDA had predicted low prices, saying the landslides had washed off the top soils, leaving behind rocky soils. Each acre of Arabica coffee takes up to 680 coffee trees. This, the UCDA said, indicates that more than 884, 000 coffee trees were destroyed in the tragedy.

Though prices slightly dropped at the beginning of the harvesting season in July, the premium parchment has risen again to $3.3 per kg, up from $2.8. Ordinary parchment now trades at $2.8 per kg, up from $2.4.

Coffee exporters in the region attribute the rise in prices to scarcity due to delayed harvest. At the peak of the coffee scarcity in June this year, prices of premium Arabica shot up to $3.8 per kg from $2.6.

Umar Maleh, communications officer for Kyagalanyi Coffee Ltd, a local coffee export firm, said whereas the harvest season was expected to reach its peak this month, it had been delayed.

“The coffee trees are full of green and yellow cherries in the process of ripening. The red cherries are very scanty and the competition for them from purchasing firms is high,’’ Maleh said, adding: “Unlike the previous year, when each of our five washing stations in the coffee producing districts used to collect more than six metric tonnes of parchment per day, we are now finding it difficult to collect even a single tonne.’’

 Bugisu region is the biggest producer of Arabica coffee in Uganda with most of it exported to European markets and China.

Arabica coffee has two harvesting seasons with the peak season stretching from August to early February. The fry crop (remnants of the cherries from the peak season) is harvested from March to May before the trees start blooming.

Mr Maleh said whereas the scarcity can partly be attributed to the floods and landslides that have hit the coffee producing areas of Bulambuli, Sironko, Mbale, Kapchorwa and Kween, the long term effect on the trade could be disastrous.

‘’A single tree of coffee can produce up to five kg of parchment and takes three to five years to achieve that maturity. With that amount of acreage destroyed, it will take the industry a long time to recover,’’ Mr Maleh said.

However, William Wepukhulu, the UCDA eastern regional manager, downplayed the impact of the landslides on the local market prices, arguing that the Arabica coffee prices are determined by market forces at the international market and the supply from the world’s big producers such as Brazil and Costa Rica. 

The East African

Rwanda government to construct coffee roasting plant

by Gertrude Majyambere

The Rwandan National Agriculture Export Development Board (NAEB) is set to establish a coffee roasting plant as part of the government’s strategy to raise farmers’ earnings and boost coffee exports by adding value to the crop.

The Rwf700million (1 US$D = 622.9243 RWF) plant will be put up through a Public Private Partnership (PPP), with Ocir-Café holding 49 per cent stake in the project while private operator, Clinton Hunter Development Initiative, will hold 51 per cent shares.

Alex Kanyankole, the Director General of NAEB said they are yet to acquire a construction permit. Real Contractors has been hired to carryout the construction, which will last between six and eight months.

“This plant is aimed at the premium end of the market and will complement other products in the coffee export chain but it will be priced higher than our green coffee beans,” Kanyankole said.

Rwanda mainly exports traditional coffee beans, which currently attracts US$6 per kilo on the international market, US$14 less than the price of roasted coffee.

The plant will have the capacity to roast 3,000 metric tones annually. Rwanda targets the Middle East, regional markets and the US for her roasted coffee exports.

This year, government targets US $60m from coffee exports, up from US $47m last year.

Currently, coffee roasters include Bourbon, Ocir Café and Nkubiri Enterprise that roast between 10 and 20 metric tonnes per year.

The New Times

Zimbabwe maize production in four-fold increase since 2008, tobacco five-fold

Zimbabwe's finance minister Tendai Biti, speaking in parliament in answer to questions about government support for maize farmers, said,  "In 2008 the maize production was 400 000 metric tonnes but in 2011 the production of maize stands at 1,5 million metric tonnes. It could have been 1,7 million metric tonnes but because of the drought between December 2010 and January 2011 we lost 11 percent of hectarage.''

"The second crop is tobacco. In 2008 we produced 34 million kg and in 2011 our expected delivery will be 174 million kg and as I stand here 134 million kg have been delivered. In fact, with all the crops and livestock in Zimbabwe there has been a fundamental increase in production between 2008 and 2011 with the exception of two crops, tea and coffee. Even milk has risen to 94 million litres although this is still below the over 200 million that we need," he said.

Zimbabwe, he added, was set to meet its target of 500 000 tonnes of strategic grain reserves due to increased deliveries to GMB.

Minister Biti said Government had spent US$1,9 billion on agriculture since 2008, adding that they are also crafting an input scheme for vulnerable groups and large scale and A2 farmers this farming season.

Government had released US$10 million to pay farmers that have delivered grain but part of the money they are owed would be offset by inputs.

"What we have done is that we are gathering inputs to the tune of US$30 million and a farmer can liquidate his indebtedness with seed and fertiliser. But we will be able to pay any cent we owe by December 31 in the year of our Lord 2011," he said.

Minister Biti, however, took a swipe at the GMB for having a large salary bill that is chewing upUS$10 million a month. The parastatal would soon be unbundled into two companies dealing with collection of the strategic grain reserve and the other commercial activities.

Minister Biti, however, said the long term solution to ensure that farmers are paid on time was to have a commodity exchange.

The Herald

DRCongo: fresh start for coffee producers

by Badylon Kawanda Bakiman

Long years of civil war and instability set off a crippling decline in coffee production in the Democratic Republic of Congo: the country's output in 2010 was less than a tenth the harvest twenty years earlier. Now the DRC government has a strategy to bolster recovery of the sector.

In the eastern province of South Kivu, coffee cultivation is being encouraged in all eight districts. Dozens of nurseries have been set up, carefully tended by local farmers.

"In June and July 2011, we handed over 414 kilogrammes of arabica coffee seeds to these eight territories to cultivate," says Nkamizama Bola, the sector chief for the National Coffee Bureau (known by its French acronym, ONC) in Bukavu, the provincial capital of South Kivu.

From January to June 2011, Bola says, the ONC produced over 250,000 seedlings, distributing more than 170,000 to a hundred planters working on 580 hectares across the province.

In Orientale province, also in the east of the DRC, the actors involved are growing the robusta variety of coffee. All is being done with the collaboration of the Provincial Steering Committee, a technical body created by the Ministry of Agriculture to follow up on the revival of coffee growing in the selected provinces.

"Nearly 700 hectares must be used for growing arabica coffee in Bandundu province (in the south-west of DRC). We have been training growers since June. We have already done a lot to popularise new growing techniques," explains Marc Tunieka, engineer and president of the committee in Bandundu.

"The cost of the recovery plan for Congo's coffee sector is on the order of 100 million dollars. About 50 percent is coming from the government, allocated in the 2012 budget," says Thomas Kembola, president of the National Committee for Monitoring of the Coffee Sector at the agriculture ministry.

The Strategy Document for the Recovery of the Coffee Sector 2011-2015 stresses that by 2015 the country wants to achieve a production level of 120,000 tonnes of coffee. The document outlines the government's plans to reinforce activities all along the value chain, including research, production, processing and marketing, as well as local processing and consumption.

According to experts, Congo's export volume fell from around 119,320 tonnes of coffee in 1989 to just 897 tonnes in 2009, and less than 6,000 tonnes in 2010, due to numerous factors such as the civil wars of 1997 and 1998.

But armed conflict is only part of the picture: the upkeep of coffee plantations and processing facilities has been neglected or abandoned; the big buyers have disappeared...

"Our greatest fear is linked to climate change," worries Joseph Katenga, an expert in coffee cultivation. "Drought could have a negative impact on production despite new methods that have been introduced." He recommends that the government makes improved, high-yielding varieties available in all six coffee-producing provinces.

Bonzeme said roasted coffee will be sold to the international market at a price of up to 4,400 dollars per tonne. Each producing region will have an agency charged with buying raw coffee from producers at around 380 dollars per tonne. The coffee will be harvested in April and May.

The plan has its doubters. "If the government has not restored the coffee sector over the past five years, will it really accomplish anything now, in the few months before the elections? I don't think so. We won't be distracted [from government's actual track record]," says opposition MP Leonard Lumeya Dhu Malegi.

"The country was in a big hole when we came into power," retorts Prime Minister Adolphe Muzito. "The government is striving to re-establish, bit by bit, many economic activities simultaneously to stimulate the national economy. There is no attempt at distraction here, we're putting everyone to work."

"The idea of relaunching the coffee sector is good. But the government must invest heavily and ensure follow up if it wants to have good results," said Arsène Ngondo, vice president of civil society in Bandundu.

IPS