About Cof­fee Farm­ing in Ethiopia

Last year again was dri­ven by news of famine and star­va­tion in East-Africa. With Ethiopia being one of the biggest coun­tries in african cof­fee pro­duc­tion, its nat­ural fac­tors offer ideal grounds for agri­cul­tural pro­duc­tion, a sec­tor in which 85% of the pop­u­la­tion are work­ing in.

We under­took a visual research of the social and eco­nomic cir­cum­stances of cof­fee farm­ers in Ethiopia and their poten­tial to develop sus­tain­able busi­ness and estab­lish­ing basic liv­ing stan­dards by form­ing coop­er­a­tives, in order to aggre­gate social and tech­ni­cal innovation.

The devel­op­ment of Ethiopia could be described as in tran­si­tion between tra­di­tion and indus­tri­al­iza­tion. Between wooden ploughs with oxen and high tech Learjet’s. Most of the 82 mil­lion inhab­i­tants are farm­ers (approx. 85%) in a coun­try full of oppor­tu­ni­ties and rich in resources. As most of the devel­op­ing coun­tries the exports rely mostly on pri­mary goods, such as cof­fee, live­stock and khat. Ethiopia is a the most impor­tant cof­fee exporter in Africa, and earned 840 Mln. US-Dollars with their Ara­bica and Spe­cialty cof­fees. Cof­fee exports account for around 60% of Ethiopian total exports.

Cof­fee is, after oil, the sec­ond most traded com­mod­ity in the world. One might sug­gest that the wealth of the cof­fee export­ing coun­tries might be as shim­mer­ing as in the oil-based economies. But its not even likely.

East-Africa is suf­fer­ing from star­va­tion. Infra­struc­ture is a major prob­lem. For­eign Trade in some ways as well. At the same time when the corn car­ry­ing cargo ships of the World Food Pro­gram arrive in Dji­bouti (which is the clos­est port for sea-trade), oth­ers full of rice and other agri­cul­tural goods are leav­ing for Saudi-Arabia and Asian countries.

There is a say­ing: “The Ethiopian hopes for a lot of rain in Canada.”

Eco­nom­i­cally seen the ques­tion is, how can the poten­tial in the rural and remote areas be strength­ened? How can the Farm­ers them­selves eman­ci­pate from eco­nomic dependencies?

One key is edu­ca­tion. Edu­ca­tion that is given locally to those who actu­ally are in demand. Bring­ing solu­tions and knowl­edge in order to improve the lives of the peo­ple, by improv­ing the qual­ity of their prod­ucts and diver­si­fy­ing their port­fo­lio. For exam­ple to pro­duce a spe­cialty cof­fee than only the poorly processed and thus poorly paid stan­dard qual­ity coffee.

If the farm­ers can­not make a decent liv­ing by what they do, they will migrate and leave their habi­tats. Caus­ing the rapid growth of mega cities and shelters.

Trade than Aid.

For a fair trade, not only as a label, the African economies need to be taken seri­ously and they need to take their eco­nomic edu­ca­tion and empow­er­ment as much as serious.

With this project I want to set a pos­i­tive exam­ple of what devel­op­ment work can do for the peo­ple, and what peo­ple can actu­ally do for them­selves, if organ­ised and with a com­mon vision.

You can also find & fund the project at betterplace.org

Thank You,

Alexan­der Klebe

The past 15 days in Ethiopia were quite an impres­sion, which I won´t want to miss as part of my life expe­ri­ence. The peo­ple are one of their kind and always worth a lit­tle inter­est in their lives, as they gladly show them­selves and what they do. This lit­tle herds­man I found while being on a trek in the south of Gonder in almost 3000m of alti­tude. He reminded me of the story of Caldi, who was a Ethiopian herds­boy in the Caffa region. His goats were point­ing him to the magic of the cof­fee beans and their stimulus.

While being in Ethiopia I also vis­ited the cof­fee plan­ta­tions in the Jimma region, with the help of Carl Cer­vone from Tech­noserve and his team, we were able to get in touch with the cof­fee farm­ers and get insights into their field of busi­ness and daily chal­lenges. For exam­ple the chal­leng­ing 6km mud-walk from the local mar­ket to their co-operative cen­ter. The whole coffee-story is unfold­ing even more, now that I am back in Ger­many and work­ing on the video doc­u­men­tary on the cof­fee busi­ness. I am espe­cially inter­ested in alter­na­tive trade mod­els like Fair­trade Cof­fee or the Cof­fee Cir­cle, who oper­ate a dif­fer­ent model straight out of Berlin.

Maybe it is even time to rewrite my diploma the­sis from 2007 on the Mar­ket­ing and Mon­i­tor­ing of Fair­trade. But to be hon­est, I believe that a small doc­u­men­tary movie can have a much greater con­sumer impact, than a sci­en­tific and abstract work.