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Borneo Post
a day ago
- Business
- Borneo Post
The journey of the coffee bean: From birthplace in Africa to global empowerment
Africa is one of the important coffee bean producing regions in the world. AFRICA is one of the important coffee bean producing regions in the world. The two major coffee bean varieties, Arabica and Robusta, are said to have originated from Africa. Blessed with favorable climate and fertile soil, coffee beans thrive on the continent. he harvested coffee was shipped out of Africa for processing and sale, leaving the African people with painful memories of bloodshed and exploitation. In the late 19th century, Western colonisers seized land in Africa for planting coffee and tea. The harvested coffee was shipped out of Africa for processing and sale, leaving the African people with painful memories of bloodshed and exploitation. At that time, local people grew up with a colonial mentality that coffee is a white man's drink. Africa has accelerated its coffee processing industry in recent years, seizing market opportunities in Global South countries and establishing a more fair and equitable international trade system. Africa has accelerated its coffee processing industry in recent years, seizing market opportunities in Global South countries and establishing a more fair and equitable international trade system. For coffee-producing countries in Africa, they may not be able to influence the market individually, but once they unite, they can speak with one voice in the global market.
The Star
2 days ago
- General
- The Star
How coffee became a symbol of resilience and self-reliance for Africa
IN a cozy cafe nestled in Nairobi's Karen district, chestnut-colored AA-grade Kenyan coffee beans are carefully ground, extracted and brewed under the focused gaze of a local barista. The bitterness transforms into something wondrous, a bright acidity blossoms, reminiscent of ripe, juicy tropical fruits. The aroma quickly fills the room, invigorating the senses. Eastern Africa, where Kenya is located, shares an inseparable bond with coffee, while Ethiopia, in the Horn of Africa, is widely hailed as the birthplace of coffee. Specialty beans like Kenya AA and Ethiopia Yirgacheffe are beloved by coffee aficionados around the globe and remain highly sought-after commodities on the world market. From "Originating in Africa" to "Out of Africa," the humble coffee bean carries with it a painful legacy of colonisation and exploitation. Today, the magic bean has become a symbol of resilience and self-reliance for Africa and the Global South, bearing witness to a rising new tide from the Global South. Coffee prices in particular are worsening food price inflation for shoppers across Europe. — Photo: Elisa Schu/dpa Unexpected gift Coffee is often regarded as an unexpected gift from Africa. Legend has it that around 800 CE, in the Kaffa region of southern Ethiopia, a goat herder named Kaldi noticed his goats becoming unusually energetic and lively after consuming red berries from an unfamiliar shrub. Curious, Kaldi tried the berries himself and experienced a similar invigorating effect. He shared the discovery with a local monastery, where the monks, initially skeptical, eventually found that the beverage made from these berries helped them stay awake during long hours of prayer. The tale, though likely apocryphal, is widely accepted as the origin story of coffee, with the word "coffee" believed to derive from "Kaffa," the region where it was first discovered. Today, coffee remains integral to Ethiopian culture, with expressions like "Buna dabo naw (Coffee is our bread)" illustrating its importance. Arabica and Robusta, the two most prominent coffee bean varieties globally, are believed to have their origins in Africa. The highland climates of East Africa provide ideal conditions for cultivating Arabica beans, while the lowland regions of Central, Western and parts of Eastern Africa are well-suited for Robusta cultivation. Both varieties play crucial roles in the global coffee industry, catering to diverse consumer preferences and supporting the economies of coffee-producing regions worldwide. The Lake Victoria Crescent region, with its suitable terrain and tropical climate, provides an ideal environment for cultivating Robusta coffee. This area, characterised by its fertile soils and consistent rainfall, has long been recognised as the native habitat of wild Robusta coffee trees. For centuries, wild Robusta coffee trees have thrived in Uganda's natural forests. Long before the arrival of European colonisers, the Baganda people had already begun cultivating coffee. Today, in traditional coffee-growing regions such as the areas surrounding Mount Elgon and the Rwenzori Mountains, some ancient coffee trees still stand, bearing witness to the country's enduring coffee heritage. Women pour fresh coffee berries on a tarpaulin for sun-drying in a plantation near the town of Budadiri in the eastern Ugandan district of Sironko on June 6, 2024. (Photo by Ronald Ssekandi/Xinhua) Coffee cherry and whip "I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills. The Equator runs across these highlands, a hundred miles to the north, and the farm lay at an altitude of over six thousand feet." Karen Blixen, a Danish author, begins her 1937 memoir Out of Africa with this iconic line. In the book, Blixen recounts her experiences from 1914 to 1931, during which she managed a coffee plantation in British East Africa, now Kenya. Her reflections provide insight into the complexities of colonialism and the personal transformations she underwent during her time in Africa. In the late 19th century, driven by profit motives, Western colonial powers forcibly seized land from indigenous communities in East Africa to establish plantations for cash crops like coffee. In 1893, French missionaries introduced coffee to Kenya, planting the first Bourbon variety seeds from Reunion Island near Nairobi. Two years later, in 1895, the British government declared the region the British East Africa Protectorate, and by 1920, it had become the Kenya Colony under direct British colonial rule. Recognising the profitability of cash crops, the British colonial administration prioritized the cultivation of coffee. They identified the central highlands – characterised by fertile volcanic soils, elevations between 1,500 and 2,100m and a temperate climate – as ideal for Arabica coffee farming, leading to the rapid commercialisation of coffee cultivation in Kenya. Land was among the foremost targets of colonial plunder. In 1902, the British colonial administration enacted the Crown Lands Ordinance, declaring all land within the East Africa Protectorate as Crown Land under the authority of the British monarch. This legislation permitted the sale or lease of parcels of land of up to 1,000 acres by authorised officials, with leases commonly set at 99 years. The most fertile regions, particularly in Kenya's central highlands, were designated as the "White Highlands" and reserved exclusively for European settlers. Indigenous communities, notably the Kikuyu and Kalenjin peoples, were forcibly displaced from their ancestral lands and relocated to less arable reserves. Under stringent colonial policies and burdensome taxation, many local inhabitants not only lost their land but were also compelled to serve as cheap labor on settlers' farms. Maina Kiarie, curator at the Enzi Museum in Kenya, said the European settler population in regions designated as the "White Highlands," including Nanyuki, Nyahururu and the Uasin Gishu area, was approximately 100 in 1903. By 1950, this number had surged to over 80,000. By 1960, around 2,000 European settlers each owned farms exceeding 2,000 acres, reflecting the extensive land consolidation by European settlers during the colonial period. In Out of Africa, Blixen reflects on the exploitation of local tenant farmers by European landowners. On her 6,000-acre farm, approximately 1,000 acres were cultivated by tenant families. These tenants, whose parents had also been born and raised on the estate, were indigenous to the land yet held no ownership rights. "The squatters were natives, who lived on the farm with their families and cultivated their little shambas there. In return for this, they had to work for me a certain number of days in the year," she wrote. During the colonial era, European settlers prohibited indigenous Kenyans from cultivating coffee themselves, said Karuga Macharia, vice chairman of the African Fine Coffees Association based in Kenya. "They were forcibly removed from fertile lands and relegated to laboring on settler-owned coffee plantations, often under exploitative conditions," said Macharia. The colonial coffee industry was structured primarily for the export of raw coffee beans to Europe, where processing and sales occurred, leaving local communities with minimal economic benefit despite the crop being grown on their land, he said. Meanwhile, Chris Oluoch, programmes director at Fairtrade Africa, highlighted the enduring impact of colonialism on Kenya's coffee industry. Today, Kenyan local producers often find themselves compelled to engage in the coffee trade through multinational corporations based in Western countries, he said. Uganda, Kenya's neighbour, became a British protectorate in the late 19th century. During the colonial period, British authorities actively promoted tea cultivation, encouraging the local population to adopt tea as their primary beverage. Meanwhile, Uganda's coffee production was geared almost entirely towards export. This export-oriented approach meant that, despite being a major coffee producer, domestic consumption remained minimal. In Uganda, the legacy of British colonialism continues to influence the perceptions of coffee. A coffee brand named "kiboko," meaning "hippopotamus" in Swahili, also refers to a whip traditionally made from hippopotamus hide. During colonial times, British overseers used such whips to enforce labour on coffee plantations, leading to the association of coffee with forced labour among Ugandans. This historical context has contributed to the perception of coffee as a "white man's drink" in Uganda. Many locals have traditionally viewed coffee primarily as a cash crop for export rather than a beverage for local consumption. Independence and struggles In the 1950s and 1960s, Africa witnessed a surge in national liberation movements. On Dec. 12, 1963, Kenya gained independence from British colonial rule. However, the departure of the colonisers did not dismantle the economic structures they had established. Coffee, introduced during the colonial era as a primary cash crop, became a double-edged sword in Kenya's post-independence economic development. While it generated foreign exchange earnings, it also contributed to food insecurity, rural poverty and entrenched inequalities within the agricultural value chain. In the early years following independence, the Kenyan government continued the colonial economic model, allocating vast tracts of land to the cultivation of cash crops like coffee and tea. This focus on export-oriented agriculture brought in foreign revenue but marginalised food production, leading to reduced domestic food supplies. While merchants and exporters profited, many farmers remained impoverished. In rural Kenya, protests frequently erupted over the low prices offered for coffee, reflecting widespread discontent among smallholder farmers. In the heart of Nairobi, a white-and-green high-rise building, home to the Nairobi Coffee Exchange (NCE), still stands. Established in 1935, the institution from the colonial era continues to dominate Kenya's coffee export. "We are still deeply reliant on international markets, exporting mostly semi-processed coffee beans. As a result, the majority of profits are captured by middlemen and developed countries, leaving our farmers with just a fraction of the final retail value," said Dennis Munene Mwaniki, executive director of the China-Africa Center at Kenya's Africa Policy Institute. The majority of Kenyan coffee is exported in semi-processed form through the NCE, a system established during colonial rule, he said, adding that this structure limits Kenya's control and influence over the coffee value chain. "This approach is one of the reasons behind the challenges facing Kenya's coffee industry today," he said. Pricing at the NCE is largely determined by a few international buyers and local intermediaries, leaving local coffee farmers with little choice but to accept the prices offered. The coffee industry's business model is based on a type of neo-colonialism, dominated by a handful of transnational coffee merchants whose profits are bountiful, said a commentary on Australia's The Conversation website. "Over 80% of the world's coffee comes from 25mil small-scale farmers and 60% is produced by farmers on less than 5 hectares. Many of them struggle to make a decent living," it said. Kenyan coffee farmers exemplify this disparity. While a cup of coffee in European specialty cafes typically costs around USD$4 (RM, many Kenyan coffee labourers earn at most USD$2.3 (RM per day. For Ethiopia, despite the global acclaim and high retail prices of Ethiopian coffee, only about 5 to 10% of the final retail price returns to Ethiopia. The majority of profits are captured by international distributors and brokers. Consequently, many Ethiopian coffee farmers earn as little as USD$500 (RM)annually, despite their year-round labour, according to data from the World Bank. Meanwhile, in Uganda, the coffee industry is similar to that of other African countries, as it continues to grapple with the enduring legacies of colonial economic structures. Nelson Tugume, chairman of Inspire Africa Group, said that this profound inequity not only demoralises coffee farmers but also impedes the sustainable development of Africa's coffee sector. He called for a more equitable and reasonable allocation of the substantial wealth generated by the global coffee trade, asserting that African coffee farmers deserve a fairer share of the profits. People make coffee during the 20th African Fine Coffees Conference and Exhibition and the First African Coffee Week in Addis Ababa, capital of Ethiopia, Feb. 8, 2024. (Photo by Michael Tewelde/Xinhua) Fair trade and cooperation The call for Africa to move beyond being merely a supplier of raw materials in the global coffee industry is growing stronger in coffee-producing countries like Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda. One of Kenya's strategies to achieve this goal has been the formation of smallholder coffee cooperatives. According to the African Fine Coffees Association, Kenya's coffee sector comprises approximately 800,000 smallholder farmers who are organised into around 500 cooperatives. By doing so, small-scale farmers can pool resources, share knowledge, and improve the quality and consistency of their coffee. This collective approach not only empowers farmers economically but also contributes to the sustainable development of the coffee industry in Kenya, said Karuga Macharia, vice chairman of the association. He explained that due to the limited availability of suitable land for coffee cultivation, Kenya's coffee industry is focusing on increasing per-tree yields to boost overall production without expanding farmland. Currently, cooperatives are assisting farmers in enhancing per-tree yields, with some reports indicating that well-managed trees can produce up to 40kg annually, said Macharia. In Kenya's Kirinyaga County, the Mutira Farmers' Cooperative Society, comprising approximately 8,000 smallholder farmers, is leveraging the region's unique volcanic soils and favorable climate to produce high-quality coffee that is in demand on the international market. Victor Munene, an agronomist with the cooperative, noted that the cooperative provides fertilisers and pesticides to farmers on credit, allowing them to repay the loans after delivering their coffee cherries. "This system ensures that farmers can access necessary inputs even when they lack immediate funds, thereby improving both the yield and quality of their coffee," said Munene. He added that the cooperative offers both online and in-person training sessions, as well as telephone consultations, to support farmers. In addition, the cooperative also regularly hires agronomists to conduct soil sampling and analysis, enabling precise identification of the nutrients required for optimal crop growth. In recent years, the Kenyan government has intensified its efforts to support and reform the nation's coffee industry through several key initiatives. One major initiative has been the establishment and expansion of the Coffee Cherry Advance Revolving Fund, which provides unsecured loans to smallholder farmers to ease their access to credit. The government has also introduced a "three-day payment guarantee" under the Direct Settlement System platform, ensuring that farmers receive payment within 72 hours after delivering their coffee cherries, a significant improvement from the previous approval period of 5 to 14 days. Earlier this year, several government departments jointly rolled out new policies aimed at further improving coffee farming techniques, expanding cultivation into non-traditional regions and enhancing transparency in the auction system. According to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, the country's coffee export volume rose by 12% in 2024 to 53,519 tons. Export earnings also increased, climbing from 251 million dollars in 2023 to 296 mil dollars in 2024. New market and opportunity In addition to organising smallholder farmers into cooperatives to strengthen collective bargaining power, several African countries are also working to boost value addition in the coffee sector by developing local brands. Ethiopia, currently Africa's largest coffee producer and the fifth largest globally, produces approximately 600,000 tons of coffee annually. In recent years, the country has taken significant steps to restructure its coffee industry, shifting from raw bean exports to customized, value-added products, as it climbs up the value chain. To support this transition, the Ethiopian government has introduced a range of policies, including registering national coffee trademarks in key international markets and actively promoting Ethiopian coffee brands globally. In 2004, recognising that most of its coffee producers were smallholder farmers, the Ethiopian government launched the Ethiopian Fine Coffee Trademarking and Licensing Initiative. This initiative registered trademarks for three renowned coffee-producing regions: Yirgacheffe, Sidamo and Harar. Uganda has also been making concerted efforts to enhance value addition in its coffee sector. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has consistently emphasised that increasing value addition is central to the development of the country's coffee industry. In 2024, he signed the National Coffee (Amendment) Bill into law, which encourages the establishment of a transparent coffee auction system to protect farmers from exploitation by middlemen and promotes the growth of local processing enterprises focusing on value-added coffee products. Kenya, Ethiopia and other African coffee-producing countries are also fostering South-South cooperation to enhance their positions in the global coffee industry by expanding their sales networks through trade fairs and e-commerce platforms, targeting emerging markets such as Egypt, Nigeria and China. "If I know a song of Africa, of the giraffe and the African new moon lying on her back, of the plows in the fields and the sweaty faces of the coffee pickers, does Africa know a song of me..." Blixen wrote in Out of Africa. If the humble coffee bean could sing, its song would echo with the bitterness of colonial pasts, the trials of independence, and the enduring spirit of Africa's struggle for fairness and self-reliance. - Xinhua/ANN
Business Recorder
5 days ago
- Business
- Business Recorder
Brazil 2025 Robusta harvest in full swing, could beat estimates
SAO PAULO: Brazil's 2025 Robusta coffee crop collection, including the Conilon variety, is advancing strongly and could beat initial estimates, industry experts told Reuters this week, as the harvest weighs on prices. 'Field reports indicate strong yields, and expectations are that the crop may even exceed initial forecasts,' said Jonas Ferraresso, a coffee agronomist who advises Brazilian farmers. Public and private sources are pointing towards a record crop, Ferraresso said. Crop collection for Cooabriel - Brazil's largest Conilon coffee cooperative - in the state of Espirito Santo is in full swing, the organization's President Luiz Carlos Bastianello said in an interview, estimating that around 25% of the total harvest had been completed. According to broker StoneX, 23.4% of Brazil's expected 2025 Robusta crop had been harvested as of May 26. 'The expectation we have now is really for a larger harvest, possibly larger than the 2022 harvest, a harvest with reasonably good quality as well,' Bastianello said, adding that production in Espirito Santo is forecast at over 17 million 60-kilogram (132.3 lb) bags. In the 2022 harvest, some 16 million 60-kilogram bags were harvested, Bastianello said. Unseasonable rainfall in the region during the current harvest is not an issue and could suggest a good Conilon crop in 2026, he added.
Wakala News
5 days ago
- Business
- Wakala News
India's latest coffee hub? Beans and brews offer new hope to Nagaland
Dimapur, Mokokchung, Wokha, Chumoukedima and Kohima, India — With its high ceilings, soft lighting and brown and turquoise blue cushioned chairs, Juro Coffee House has the appearance of a chic European cafe. Sitting right off India's National Highway-2, which connects the northeastern states of Assam, Nagaland and Manipur, the cafe hosts a live roastery unit that was set up in January by the Nagaland state government. Here, green coffee beans from 12 districts in Nagaland are roasted live, ground and served, from farm to cup. On a typical day, the cafe gets about a hundred customers, sipping on coffee, with smoke breaks in between. Those numbers aren't big – but they're a start. For decades, an armed rebellion seeking the secession of Nagaland from India dominated the state's political and economic landscape. Thousands have been killed in clashes between security forces and armed rebels in Nagaland since India's independence, soon after which Naga separatists held a plebiscite in which nearly all votes were cast in favour of separating from the Indian union. India has never accepted that vote. The state's economy has depended on agriculture, with paddy, fruits like bananas and oranges and green leafy vegetables like mustard leaves, the main crops grown traditionally. Now, a growing band of cafes, roasteries and farms across the state are looking to give Nagaland a new identity by promoting locally grown Arabica and Robusta coffee. Juro Coffee House is among them. While coffee was first introduced to the state in 1981 by the Coffee Board of India, a body set up by the Indian government to promote coffee production, it only began to take off after 2014. Helped by government policy changes and pushed by a set of young entrepreneurs, Nagaland today has almost 250 coffee farms spread across 10,700 hectares (26,400 acres) of land in 11 districts. About 9,500 farmers are engaged in coffee cultivation, according to the state government. The small state bordering Myanmar today boasts of eight roastery units, besides homegrown cafes mushrooming in major cities like Dimapur and Kohima, and interior districts like Mokokchung and Mon. For Searon Yanthan, the founder of Juro Coffee House, the journey began with COVID-19, when the pandemic forced Naga youth studying or working in other parts of India or abroad to return home. But this became a blessing in disguise since they brought back value to the state, says Yanthan. 'My father used to say, those were the days when we used to export people,' he told Al Jazeera. 'Now it's time to export our products and ideas, not the people.' 'Back to the farm' Like many kids his age, Yanthan left Nagaland for higher studies in 2010, first landing up in the southern city of Chennai for high school and then the northern state of Punjab for his undergraduate studies, before dropping out to study in Bangalore. 'I studied commerce but the only subject I was good in was entrepreneurship,' said the 30-year-old founder, dressed in a pair of smart formal cotton pants and a baby pink polo neck shirt. The pandemic hit just as he was about to graduate, and Yanthan left with no degree in hand. One day, he sneaked into a government vehicle from Dimapur during the COVID-19 lockdown – when only essential services like medical and government workers were allowed to move around – to return to his family farm estate, 112km (70 miles) from state capital Kohima, where his dad first started growing coffee in 2015. He ended up spending seven months at the farm during lockdown and realised that coffee farmers didn't know much about the quality of beans, which wasn't surprising considering coffee is not a household beverage among Nagas and other ethnic communities in India's northeast. Yanthan, who launched Lithanro Coffee, the parent company behind Juro, in 2021, started visiting other farms, working with farmers on improving coffee quality and maintaining plantations. Once his own processing unit was set up, he began hosting other coffee farmers, offering them a manually brewed cup of their own produce. Gradually, he built a relationship with 200 farmers from whom he sources beans today, besides the coffee grown on his farm. Yanthan sees coffee as an opportunity for Nagaland's youth to dream of economic prospects beyond jobs in the government — the only aspiration for millions of Naga families in a state where private-sector employment has historically been uncertain. 'Every village you go to, parents are working day and night in the farms to make his son or daughter get a government job,' Yanthan told Al Jazeera. Coffee, to him, could also serve as a vehicle to bring people together. 'In this industry, it's not only one person who can do this work, it has to be a community,' he said. Brewing success So what changed in 2015? Coffee buyers and roasters are unanimous in crediting the state government's decision to hand over charge of coffee development to Nagaland's Land Resources Department (LRD) that year. The state department implements schemes sponsored by the federal government and the state government, including those promoting coffee. Unlike in the past, when Nagaland – part of a region that has historically had poor physical connectivity with the rest of India – also had no internet, coffee roasters, buyers and farmers could now build online links with the outside world. '(The) market was not like what it is today,' said Albert Ngullie, the director of the LRD. The LRD builds nurseries and provides free saplings to farmers, besides supporting farm maintenance. Unlike before, the government is also investing in the post-harvest process by supplying coffee pulpers to farmers, setting up washing stations and curing units in a few districts and recently, supporting entrepreneurs with roastery units. Among those to benefit is Lichan Humtsoe. He set up his company Ete (which means 'ours' in the Lotha Naga dialect) in 2016 after quitting his pen-pushing job in the LRD and was the first in the state to source, serve and supply Naga specialty coffee. Today, Ete runs its own cafes, roasteries and a coffee laboratory, researching the chemical properties of indigenous fruits as flavour notes. Ete also has a coffee school in Nagaland (and a campus in the neighbouring state of Manipur) with a dedicated curriculum and training facilities to foster the next generation of coffee professionals. Humtsoe said the past decade has shown that the private sector and government in Nagaland have complemented each other in promoting coffee. Nagaland's growing coffee story also coincides with an overall increase in India's exports of coffee beans. In 2024, India's coffee exports surpassed $1bn for the first time, with production doubling compared with 2020-21. While more than 70 percent of India's coffee comes from the southern state of Karnataka, the Coffee Board has been trying to expand cultivation in the Northeast. Building a coffee culture in Nagaland is no easy feat, given that decades of unrest left the state in want of infrastructure and almost completely reliant on federal funding. Growing up in the 1990s, when military operations against alleged armed groups were frequent and security forces would often barge into homes, day or night, Humtsoe wanted nothing to do with India. At one point, he stopped speaking Nagamese – a bridge dialect among the state's 16 tribes and a creole version of the Indian language, Assamese. But he grew disillusioned with the political solution rooted in separatism that armed groups were seeking. And the irony of the state's dependence on funds from New Delhi hit the now 39-year-old. Coffee became his own path to self-determination. 'From 2016 onwards, I was more of, 'How can I inspire India?'' The quality challenge Ngullie of the LRD insists that the coffee revolution brewing in Nagaland is also helping the state preserve its forests. 'We don't do land clearing,' he said, in essence suggesting that coffee was helping the state's agriculture transition from the traditional slash-and-burn techniques to agroforestry. The LRD buys seed varieties from the Coffee Board for farmers, and growers make more money than before. Limakumzak Walling, a 40-year-old farmer, recalled how his late father was one of the first to grow Arabica coffee in 1981 on a two-acre farm on their ancestral land in Mokokchung district's Khar village. 'During my father's time, they used to cultivate it, but people didn't find the market,' he said. 'It was more of a burden than a bonus.' Before the Nagaland government took charge of coffee development, the Coffee Board would buy produce from farmers and sell it to buyers or auction it in their headquarters in Bengaluru, Karnataka. But the payments, said Walling, would be made in instalments over a year, sometimes two. Since he took over the farm, and the state department became the nodal agency, payments are not only higher but paid upfront with buyers directly procuring from the farmers. Still, profits aren't huge. Walling makes less than 200,000 rupees per annum (roughly $2,300) and like most farmers, is still engaged in jhum cultivation, the traditional slash-and-burn method of farming practised by Indigenous tribes in northeastern hills. With erratic weather patterns and decreasing soil fertility in recent decades, intensified land use in jhum cultivation has been known to lead to further environmental degradation and greenhouse gas emissions, exacerbating climate change. 'Trees are drying up and so is the mountain spring water,' Walling told Al Jazeera, pointing at the evergreen woods where spring leaves were already wilting in March, well before the formal arrival of summer. 'Infestation is also a major issue and we don't use even organic fertilisers because we are scared of spoiling our land,' he added. And though the state government has set up some washing stations and curing units, many more are needed for these facilities to be accessible to all farmers, said Walling, for them to sustain coffee as a viable crop and secure better prices. 'Right now we don't know the quality. We just harvest it,' he said. Dipanjali Kemprai, a liaison officer who leads the Coffee Board of India operations in Nagaland, told Al Jazeera that the agency encourages farmers to grow coffee alongside horticultural crops like black pepper to supplement their income. 'But intercropping still hasn't fully taken off,' said Kemprai. Meanwhile, despite the state's efforts to promote sustainable agriculture, recent satellite data suggests that shifting cultivation, or jhum, may be rising again. The future of Naga coffee Though it is the seventh-largest producer of coffee, India is far behind export-heavy countries like Brazil, Vietnam, Colombia and Italy. And while the Nagaland government maintains that exports have been steadily growing, entrepreneurs tell a different story. Vivito Yeptho, who co-owns Nagaland Coffee and became the state's first certified barista in 2018, said that their last export of 15 metric tonnes (MT) was in 2019, to South Africa. Still, there are other wins to boast of. In 2024, the state registered its highest-ever production at 48 MT, per state department officials. Yeptho said Nagaland Coffee alone supplies 40 cafes across India, of which 12 are in the Northeast region. And Naga coffee is already making waves internationally, winning silver at the Aurora International Taste Challenge in South Africa in 2022 and then gold in 2023. 'To aim for export, we need to be at least producing 80-100 MT every year,' Yeptho told Al Jazeera. But before aiming for mass production, entrepreneurs said they still have a long way to go in improving the quality of beans and their post-harvest processing. With a washing mill and a curing unit in his farm, where he grows both Arabica and Robusta varieties, Yanthan's Lithanro brand is the only farm-to-cup institution in the state. He believes farmers need to focus on better maintenance of their plantations, to begin with. 'Even today, the attitude is that the plants don't need to be tended to during the summers and monsoon season before harvest (which starts by November),' Yanthan told Al Jazeera. 'But the trees need to be constantly pruned to keep them within a certain height, weeding has to be done and the stems need to be maintained as well.' Even as these challenges ground Naga farmers and entrepreneurs in reality, their dreams are soaring. Humtsoe hopes for speciality coffee from Nagaland to soon be GI tagged, like varieties from Coorg, Chikmagalur, Araku Valley and Wayanad in southern India. He wants good coffee from India to be associated with Nagas, not just Nagaland, he said. 'People of the land must become the brand'.
Reuters
6 days ago
- Business
- Reuters
Brazil 2025 Robusta harvest in full swing and could beat estimates, experts say
SAO PAULO, May 30 (Reuters) - Brazil's 2025 Robusta coffee crop collection, including the Conilon variety, is advancing strongly and could beat initial estimates, industry experts told Reuters this week, as the harvest weighs on prices. "Field reports indicate strong yields, and expectations are that the crop may even exceed initial forecasts," said Jonas Ferraresso, a coffee agronomist who advises Brazilian farmers. Public and private sources are pointing towards a record crop, Ferraresso said. Crop collection for Cooabriel - Brazil's largest Conilon coffee cooperative - in the state of Espirito Santo is in full swing, the organization's President Luiz Carlos Bastianello said in an interview, estimating that around 25% of the total harvest had been completed. According to broker StoneX, 23.4% of Brazil's expected 2025 Robusta crop had been harvested as of May 26. "The expectation we have now is really for a larger harvest, possibly larger than the 2022 harvest, a harvest with reasonably good quality as well," Bastianello said, adding that production in Espirito Santo is forecast at over 17 million 60-kilogram (132.3 lb) bags. In the 2022 harvest, some 16 million 60-kilogram bags were harvested, Bastianello said. Unseasonable rainfall in the region during the current harvest is not an issue and could suggest a good Conilon crop in 2026, he added. Prices for the commodity have declined as the new crop is collected, said Fernando Maximiliano, coffee market intelligence manager for broker StoneX in Brazil. "Robusta coffee (prices) have been falling significantly in recent weeks. This is already a sign of the arrival of this new harvest," Maximiliano said. Earlier this week, Robusta coffee futures on ICE fell to a 5-1/2 month low of $4,550 per metric ton. The potential for a record crop is causing "significant urgency" among Robusta growers to harvest and sell, Ferraresso said. "The concern now is how this increased supply might affect prices in the coming months."
