Hello – and welcome to this month’s Ezine…which is on the topic of coffee.

Born and Grown in Africa - Coffee:

It is 4 A.M., my day begins. At this stage of my life, I do not need an alarm to awaken from a sound sleep—my “internal clock” lets me know that morning has arrived.

I am standing by my espresso machine—having loaded it with freshly ground coffee--the water is shooting through the coffee holder. I can smell the scent of freshly brewed coffee. I see the frothy head, creamlike line forming on top of the coffee cup. I anticipate tasting it. Then as I sit down to read the morning news on BBC World Service, I take a sip of my espresso coffee, which someone grew and picked in Africa, Asia or South America.

I live in a small town on the west coast of the USA that has more coffee outlets than any other town in the USA on a per capita basis. Wherever you go there is an espresso – coffee dispensing station. Every gas station has a drive through or drive by where my fellow town residents are getting their caffeine fix, and that is not just in the morning, many of them are open 24 hours per day. When it comes to Coffee shops we are number four per capita in the USA.

The reality a lot of people are making money on the sale of coffee—indeed everyone involved in the coffee industry is making money except the coffee growers throughout the world and in places where my heart is, Africa.

In African countries like Uganda, Rwanda, Ethiopia, coffee is selling for 50 cents a pound. However, I recently purchased some Ethiopian coffee here in my town in the USA for around 4 DOLLARS a pound. –and that’s the “low end” price for this type of blend…you can buy similar coffee from Harare, Ethiopia for over 10 DOLLARS a pound!

Most of the time I use French roast coffee that boasts on the package “Earth Friendly-Concern for Nature – Care for People – Respect for Environment.” All the right words, but to me labels on a package can be like a bumper sticker—empty words, slogans that are not reality. Advertising on a package of French Roast coffee just might be simply cheap talk; talk that caters to the buying public but more often ignores the grower.

I’ve met coffee farmers both in Uganda and Kenya and I can tell you this, their homes have none of the affluent aura and elegant ambience of a North American coffee house --affluence all brought about through the sale of coffee. Yet, in most of East Africa, there are no “trendy” coffee shops—only people (coffee growers) operating in survival mode. . On an African coffee farm, there’s no discussion about the latest coffee “specialty”….just concerned discussion about the falling price of coffee, yet again, and how one will manage to eke out an existence. In Africa where the coffee is grown, there is a mother wringing her hands, worrying how to take care of her children for another day since coffee crops that used to give them enough profit to make a “bare essentials” lifestyle, are now dragging them into a hopeless, bottomless pit. There in Africa is a father looking over his coffee farm, hoping for a miracle, but only find another disappointing season.

Coffee has a long and intriguing history of which most people are unaware. . Both major varieties of coffee have their origin in Africa. The Arabica bean comes from the highlands of Ethiopia and from there has been transplanted throughout the world. . Arab traders took coffee into Yemen and beyond. It was called the wine nectar of the Islamic world. The Sufis loved it since it allowed them to gather and worship late at night at their dhikr and, with the aid of coffee, remained awake to seek God with a clear mind.

Mocha in Yemen became the chief trading center for coffee and, although Yemen grew coffee in abundance, Ethiopian coffee from Africa remained the best and most sought after and costing more.

Another kind of coffee variety is found in the forests of Uganda and the Congo –“Robusta” coffee. The Buganda tribe chewed the coffee cherries during the blood brothers ceremonies in times of old.

Robusta coffee is not the same quality as Arabica, but it grew in abundance; it too was exported to other places in the world. After the Vietnam War the World Bank encouraged Vietnam to plant Robusta coffee plants resulting in a huge infusion of lower grade coffee that caused a reduction in price. In the 1980’s the USA withdrew its support from the International Coffee Organization and its International Coffee Agreement which guaranteed a fair price. Until the demise of this agreement, coffee did not go beneath a dollar a pound. However, the collapse of the agreement resulted in chaos for the coffee growers around the world.

Coffee prices in Uganda have plunged to as low as 30 cents a pound. At the same time, the cost of coffee at Starbucks and your nearest coffee shops were not reduced accordingly. What does this mean? It means that corporations like Nestle, Proctor and Gamble, Kraft and Starbucks are getting richer and richer, while the East African coffee farmers become poorer and poorer. These African coffee farmers have no answer for their children when they ask…”where will our next meal come from?”

Coffee has changed the world as we know it. The coffee houses of Europe were the hotbeds for social change in England, France, Germany and Austria. Coffee houses were banned by various rulers since they did not a want clear thinking populace to run them out of office. In America, it is documented the American Revolution was conceived in a coffee house and, even today, coffee houses provide places were business is conducted, where the Internet is accessed, and where people meet for social and romantic interchange. All of these modern day, trendy coffee “emporiums” are turning out huge profits for the various coffee shop chains. Not so for the coffee growers in East Africa.

What will it take to bring some hope for change to the coffee growers of Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Ethiopia and other impoverished coffee growing nations?

A good beginning would be to give the African coffee farmers and entrepreneurs “equal access” to the Western markets—African coffee growers are not seeking handouts or “aid” (which is really a form of international welfare that enslaves the recipients even more than the slavery of the colonial era)…instead all they are seeking is access to the coffee consuming countries so their crops can be sold at a fair price.

Laws are still in existence today that were drafted during the colonial era hundreds of years ago—these laws restrict the African coffee growers from roasting or packaging coffee for retail consumption and stipulate they can only sell the green coffee beans.

African coffee growers believe their coffee to be a quality product that can be marketed throughout the world—in fact; in a test run in Chin, Ugandan coffee houses are selling Ugandan coffee rapidly with very favorable response from the Chinese yuppie coffee drinking public.

Politicos from the Western nations, along with the UN and various NGO’s purport that Africa needs “poverty reduction”. I’ve not yet met an African who chanted the mantra. ”Today I am going to work on poverty reduction”. Africans know their lot in life will improve through material wealth. This wealth could come from an Africa that is allowed to not only GROW coffee and other items such as tea and cotton, but to also increase the value of these products by being allowed to roast, pack and sell the finished product.

African coffee growers need an open marketplace for their crops—along this line, some hopeful news--just recently a British grocery store chain began carrying Rwenzori coffee—and it is selling!! This instance clearly illustrates how Western nations can TRULY aid Africa, not through “hand outs”, but by empowering African people through unrestricted trade and distribution channels. As coffee flows north from Africa, goods needed within Africa will flow south from other countries, thus, poverty within Africa is reduced and new wealth is created—for both Africa and Western nations.

5 grams of roasted coffee are necessary to make one cup of coffee that sells for $2 to $3 at Starbucks. 1 pound of coffee can make 100 cups of coffee that retails for $200 to $300. Green coffee beans are sold for an average price of 50 cents per pound! And, even more dismal a statistic, the African coffee growers receive less than ½ of a percent of the cost of processed coffee!

Hopefully, there will be an ever increasing trend of “sharing the wealth” through an open marketplace for processed African coffee made by Africans and distributed throughout the world.

It is 4 A.M. in the morning and once again I am brewing a fresh cup of coffee, my thoughts go the growers in Africa and “may Trade prevail over Aid and African coffee growers thrive”…jon.