You almost said the magic word . . . crappuccino!
Posted on 05/20/2002 11:54:18 AM PDT by jennyp
The Coffee Ordeal
By Bereket Balcha
The price of Ethiopian coffee in the international market has fallen drastically after it allegedly lowered its quality lately. Some people assert that the decline in quality could be attributed to the introduction of artificial fertilizers on the crop so far being cultivated without any. Whether it was advisable to make use of those expensively imported chemicals to increase yield is a question better left for the professional treatment of an agronomist. But having observed the consequences of this practice one could safely deduce that their disadvantages have outweighed the advantages. The matter leaves one wondering if the pros and cons had been carefully studied from the onset.
A few weeks earlier Addis Tribune published my article titled "Consequences of Invasion of Ethiopian Markets by Chinese goods." In that article I tried to elaborate on the negative impact the introduction of cheap foreign goods is inflicting on our hard currency earnings and the growth of our infant industries. Whatever issue we raise in relation to a country's economic performance has a direct relation with its foreign currency earnings. Where Ethiopia stands in terms of living standards and development amongst the nations of the world is entirely dependent on its foreign currency earnings. Currency earning in the Ethiopian context could be equated to coffee sales revenues. We hear that the international market is being increasingly monopolized by heavyweights in the likes of Brazil and Costa Rica. Such exporters have managed to contain the prevailing fall of coffee price by increasing their bulk of supplies and taking advantage of lost sales by nations like ours that are lingering behind with lower quality brands.
These days it is common in Addis to come across street vendors who sell a kilo of coffee for prices as low as Birr 6 (please take note that the same used to cost something in the neighborhood of Birr 15). People on the other hand are complaining that the price for a cup of coffee at the cafes is still unchanged. They believe a lowering in price should have been exercised in this area too. And I would say, why not? I do not see why the general public or at least the general public of coffee lovers should be doubly taxed for the effects of the sea phenomena; once as citizens of a country whose primary export commodity is showing a dwindling performance and again victimized under an unfair pricing system.
Let us leave our routine cup of coffee at the cafe and see the whole issue at a larger scale. Can anything at all be done to alleviate the current situation? Is economic recession looming? How long can a nation afford to mainly depend on one commodity? These are humble questions that probe my layman imaginations but I do not think that they could be so far from the basic problems that constitute the case at hand.
One morning I was listening to the elaborations of an agronomist who advised that Ethiopia should increase both the quality and the quantity of its coffee export. That sounds like a very good idea; but I have serious doubts about its implementation considering the erratic shift of the farmers at large from coffee farming to Chat farming. Annual sales income from Chat by far exceeds that of coffee, sometimes to as much as tenfold. So why should anybody be bothered about harvesting coffee, which demands so much care when one, could reap profit from easily growing crops like Chat? It is ironic that of all the different agricultural sectors it is the coffee farmers that are mainly involved in such a shift. Thus, our coffee trade is being highly severed due to its decline both in quantity and quality. This reminds me of one important work by a Russian writer whose name I cannot recall. This work has a title that never ceases to intrigue my thought processes. It is a simple question. 'What is to be done?'. I wonder if anybody had given that a thought.
What, have they run out of Monkey Dung?
More to the point, during some research in the early eighties, I was surprised to find in the US Government import records that the US at that time got it Majority of its coffee from South Africa and the Congo/Ivory Coast areas.
The Brazilian/Columbian market accounted for about 25% of our imports.
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