COFFEE GROWER’S ASSOCIATION
REPORT TO CONGRESS 2009
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The Coffee Industry this year continued with its downward trend as it has done in the last eight years. With the continued uncertainty on the land redistribution exercise, growers have been quite rightly reluctant to apply inputs into long term crops such as coffee due to the high risk of being evicted with the resultant losses incurred. Similarly the banks have also been reluctant to offer any meaningful finance to coffee for the same reason. The industry therefore finds itself under capitalized with the resulting law of diminishing returns coming into play. The crop output this year will be around 500 tonnes with an anticipated crop of 300 tonnes forecast for 2010. This national crop is what one large scale producer was able to produce in the nineties which is an indication of just how far we have fallen. Similarly the small scale sector has also continued to shrink as the critical mass once produced by the commercial sector needed to contain infrastructural costs, such as processing and marketing is not there, making the cost applied to the small scale sector uneconomic. This is all against the backdrop of better prices being achieved, yet another lost opportunity for our country. It is astounding to note that no meaningful coffee has ever been produced on a coffee farm taken beyond the year of takeover. This is a national disgrace as well as a total waste of millions of dollars of investment and I feel that the recipients of these once productive estates should be held accountable. Many of the growers find themselves being prosecuted on ridiculous and racially motivated charges which again does not allow for confident investment into this sector. The Zimbabwe coffee mill, a once thriving processing and marketing enterprise was set up by the commercial farmers with initial assistance from the EU. This business was set up to accommodate 20,000 tonnes which was the projected expansion up to 2004. However with the resulting land chaos the national production is only, as stated above, 500 tonnes per annum and falling. This figure is obviously not viable for the mill to maintain its operations and as a result this year the mill has had to lay off most of its staff. The future of this sector for all the above reasons is therefore very bleak. In order for the coffee industry to restart the return of tradable title deeds needs to happen to allow for both the farmer and the banker to be secure with their respective investments. From nursery to first crop is a four year delay and therefore, for any coffee initiative to succeed, there must be long term security of tenure. Without it there will be no coffee industry. The industry also requires a heavy labour input and for the labour to return from our neighboring countries, the situation on the ground needs to stabilize so that they can return with confidence and rebuild a life in Zimbabwe. This at the moment is certainly not the case. The industry and association now find themselves treading water waiting for some sound political direction based on good business practice and the respect of both human rights and property rights. Should this happen we will endeavor to rebuild the industry. C Taffs(Vice President)07 July 2009