Tanzanian coffee farmers go green

Coffee is one of the main crops in Northern Tanzania where the School of St Jude is located. Most coffee is produced by small farmers who are virtually subsistence farmers. They have few resources to improve their farms or farming practices, and they are badly affected when world coffee prices fall.

The Fair Trade movement has been important in improving their conditions. You can check out Black Gold, the film that spotlights the way poor coffee farmers are disadvantaged by market conditions.



Technoserve, has been helping Tanzanian coffee farmers by supporting an association called Kilicafe, comprising 93 farmer groups, and by lobbying the Tanzanian government to change rules that restricted direct sales to overseas buyers. This has allowed Kilicafe to work on producing and marketing quality coffee that they have successfully sold directly to the big US coffee merchant, Peets. In 2006, Starbucks tripled its orders from Kilicafe, directly impacting the income of over 10,000 smallholder coffee producers. Naturally, this means that the farmers receive higher prices and get a larger share of the sale price because middlemen are not involved.

Technoserve has helped Kilicafe farmers to develop business plans, get loans for processing equipment and establish market linkages with overseas buyers. TechnoServe’s coffee experts have also trained the group’s staff on coffee quality and financial management.

The BBC reports on another interesting development in the local coffee industry. A bio-gas converter, the first of its type in East Africa, is being tested by the 120 members of a local coffee farmers' group. Instead of using diesel to fuel the coffee processing machinery, a new process uses waste water from the processing of the raw coffee beans to produce methane. The waste water is high in acid and it is this acid that micro-organisms like to feed on. Methane is a by-product of the feeding process.

Coffee farmer Moses Urio trials the new bio-fuel

This bio-gas project is a part of a larger project funded by the Swiss government's State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (Seco) to boost the incomes of Tanzanian coffee farmers.

This new bio-fuel process is a virtuous circle. It prevents the acidic water from being discharged into the environment and the saves the farmers the cost of buying diesel to power their machines.

But I wonder what happens next? How will the new process be taken beyond the pilot stage and rolled our across the industry?

There are around 55 pulperies run by farmers groups in the northern and southern coffee growing areas of Tanzania, all of which could benefit from bio-gas. But with set-up costs of around $4,000, few will be able to afford it. Mr Urio, one of the farmers in the pilot, said:

We are happy to test this technology, but if we had to pay to set it up it would be very difficult for us, even though we understand that it would take only a few years to repay the initial investment from the money we save from not buying fuel.

Perhaps low-interest loans could help these farmers to establish this more environmentally friendly process and to save some expenses at the same time.

It is really good to see these improvements for the coffee industry in Tanzania. The work of donors and not-for-profit organisations help to bring about these systemic and technical improvements. In Australia, this role is played by government departments, especially agriculture departments – think of the technical developments that are promoted to farmers by agricultural officers through local field days. None of this assistance to agriculture is available to farmers in poor countries because the governments do not have the resources due to their low tax base. Subsistence farmers don't pay income taxes because they don't sell anything.

Overseas aid to poor countries is essential if they are to benefit from the knowledge and technology of the modern world.

Your contribution to the School of St Jude will help educate the next generation of professionals and leaders of Tanzania.



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Letters to politicians

In Australia, it is easy to write to politicians. Their addresses are available in handy formats ready for printing on address labels from the Australian Parliament website.

I mentioned a couple of days ago that I am writing to all members of the House of Reps to ask them to support Australia’s commitments on foreign aid. Well, I am in the midst of sending my letters. I am up to ‘H’.

Letters, labels and envelopes. And coffee! Tanzanian of course.

Last night’s cricket was a bit too exciting for the process of sticking the label on the envelope, signing the letter, folding it and stuffing it in the envelope. Besides, I was feeling tired. So, as the weekend has slipped away from me, I decided to do a few before breakfast. And that’s what my photo shows.

Better get on with it!

P.S. A reminder: As part of the Millenium Development Goals, the Australian Government has committed to give 0.7% GDP as foreign aid. It currently gives 0.25% (rising to .35%). It is dragging its heels on its commitments. It needs to be nudged by voters otherwise this neglect will continue.

Coffee — Black Gold

Wheat, barley and rye orginated in the fertile crescent of Iraq and enabled humans to give up nomadic herding and establish agriculture-based villages – the basis of all civilised life. Tomatoes, corn, and potatoes are native to the Americas, and are now endemic to world cuisine – what would Italian cooking be without tomatoes?

But what has East Africa contributed to the world? Coffee, that ubiquitous drink that is now an $80billion global industry, originated here. A lot of people have become rich through coffee, Starbucks buys 11% of world production, but the small coffee producers of East Africa live in deep poverty.


Ninety-five percent of Tanzania’s coffee is grown by 400,000 small-scale farmers owning fewer than ten acres of land. Coffee is Tanzania’s largest export crop but small-scale farmers have not reaped the benefits because of policies that have restricted their direct access to the international coffee market. USAID supports programs that allow better trading conditions for small producers in Tanzania.

The School of St Jude is located at the foot of Mt Meru in the prime coffee growing area of Tanzania. The School gives many poor families who depend on coffee production the chance for their children to get a good education.

Private philanthropy, like your donations to the School of St Jude, can help fill the gaps left by unfair trading systems, but the system continues to be unfair. So, it is good to see organisations working to change the system. One initiative to look out for is a new documentary film, called Black Gold, that looks at coffee growing in Ethiopia. Made in 2006, it is doing the round of film festivals and should be released for general viewing later in 2007.



Black Gold is an activist film that aims to point at unfair practices and to change them. Their website has a forum that addresses issues of coffee production, Fair Trade, Starbucks and actions you can take.

If you live in the US, you can buy Peets ’Tanzania Kilimanjaro’ – the 840 growers that supply it get 50% above market rates for their quality beans.

In Australia, Oxfam sells a Fair Trade coffee that is sourced partly from Tanzania – my Christmas supply is nearly finished. Time for more!

On the basis that I need to help at two levels – filling gaps in the system (through support of St Judes) AND changing the system — I am on a letter writing campaign. I am writing to all 150 members of the House of Representatives to ask them to raise the level of Foreign Aid that Australia gives and to target it at extreme poverty. Currently, Australia gives only .26% of GDP as foreign aid, placing it fourth-last of OECD countries. It has committed to increasing this to 0.5% by 2010 and 0.7% by 2015 and these amounts will be needed if the Millenium Development Goals are to be met, because it looks like they won't be at this rate.

I have drafted the letter, printed copies and bought the envelopes and stamps. Folding and stuffing 20 envelopes a day is quite soothing! Especially when we lose the cricket, as we did last night — ending Australia’s perfect summer.

There is an interesting update about the film and related issues on the Poverty News blog. 15 Feb 2007.

Fair Trade coffee

My dear daughter Blanche has an eye for the appropriate! At Christmas she was very pleased with herself because she found some Fair Trade coffee from Tanzania to include in her Christmas gift to me.


She makes me smile at her thoughtfulness.
Fair Trade is an important scheme that promotes economic development in poor countries through trade.

Fair trade is a trading partnership, based on dialogue, transparency and respect, which seeks greater equity in international trade. It contributes to sustainable development by offering better trading conditions to, and securing the rights of, marginalized producers and workers. Fair trade organizations (backed by consumers) are engaged actively in supporting producers, awareness raising and in campaigning for changes in the rules and practice of conventional international trade.

Trade is a vital element in the mix needed to lift countries out of poverty. However Alex Nicholls, social entrepreneurship professor at Oxford University says that "within developing countries, market conditions are not such that producers can unambiguously be declared to be better off through trade." The existence of market failures lessens the capacity of trade to lift developing countries out of poverty.

Wikipedia notes that fair trade products generally account for 0.5-5% of all sales in their product categories in Europe and North America. In October 2006, over 1.5 million disadvantaged producers worldwide were directly benefiting from fair trade while an additional 5 million benefited from fair trade funded infrastructure and community development projects.

Here’s a personal aside – Australia has a culture of good coffee which was brought to us largely by Italian migrants post-WWII. So there is no excuse for the cultural imperialism of American fast-food outlets in the form of Starbucks. When you drink the watery filtered stuff that passes for coffee in US restaurants and cafes you can see why Starbucks swept the nation. But it would be a sad state of affairs if the same happened here. So, I tend not to use the few Starbucks cafes that have opened in Australia.

However, Starbucks rose mightily in my regard when I discovered that they use Fair Trade coffee. Of course my estimation slid again when I discovered that only 3.7% of their coffee is Fair Trade. Ah well – a little is better than none. Look here to learn about an activist campaign to encourage Starbucks to give greater support to Fair Trade coffee.

For more information about Fair Trade you can check out Wikipedia, or the Fair Trade Organisation of Australia and NZ.

When you are shopping, you can look for the Fair Trade logo on goods you buy. Your retail dollar is a vote, and every dollar counts.


The Fair Trade movement is just getting underway in Australia, so look out for more Fair Trade goods appearing in the major supermarkets in the next year or two.

I wonder if they grow coffee in the north of Tanzania, near Arusha? Do some of the parents of kids at St Judes work on coffee farms? Maybe I’ll find out when we visit later this year!