The Sunday Mail – Coffee strategy on the cards
“We have 98 percent of the coffee production coming from five white commercial farmers while the remaining 2 percent comes from small-scale farmers in the Honde Valley.”
http://www.sundaymail.co.zw/inside.aspx?sectid=18024&cat=8
Sunday Mail, Business July 04, 2010
Coffee strategy on the cards.
By Augustine Moyo.
THE Ministry of Industry and Trade is crafting a comprehensive strategy framework which seeks to protect and secure the sustainability and viability of the coffee industry.
Unless there is immediate intervention with a sustainable business plan, Zimbabwe will no longer be able to produce fine coffee arabica, which fetches high prices on the international coffee markets.
The strategy framework is expected to be complete within the next two months and tabled before Cabinet.
Minister of Industry and Trade Professor Welshman Ncube told The Sunday Mail Business in an interview last week that the new strategy framework will also seek to protect the remaining five white commercial farmers who are the country’s main coffee producers.
He added that these commercial farmers contribute 98 percent of the country’s total coffee production output with the remainder coming from the small-scale farmers.
Zimbabwe’s coffee production has steadily plummeted from 10 000 tonnes in 2002 to less than 2 500 tonnes in 2005 and below 300 tonnes as of April 2010.
Owing to the low production figures, the Mutare coffee mill, which is reputedly one of the best in Africa, had to cease operations as it needs 4 000 tonnes to be viable.
Minister Ncube added that much of the challenges affecting coffee producers were not the coffee industry’s own problems but policy and operational problems within the country’s agricultural sector.
“We have 98 percent of the coffee production coming from five white commercial farmers while the remaining 2 percent comes from small-scale farmers in the Honde Valley.
“In the new strategy framework that we are crafting, we seek to ensure that the remaining commercial farmers are protected and not moved off their land so that they maximise production and increase output. We will seek to have those coffee-producing farmers that were evicted from their land return and start producing coffee.
“Some of the land that was used for coffee production was used for resettlement and the farmers resettled on the coffee farms cut down the coffee trees and replaced them with maize.
“It only makes economic sense for the country to craft a framework that protects coffee producers and creates an enabling environment to revive the coffee industry bearing in mind that coffee is for export markets and now sells for almost US$4 000 per tonne compared to maize that sells for US$275,” he said.
Minister Ncube added that his ministry is in high-level talks with the European Union to find support mechanisms for the coffee industry.
The European Commission sent its officials to the Eastern Highlands in December 2005 to assess the coffee sector and had been instrumental in supporting small-scale farmers in Honde Valley with the inputs ranging from seeds, fertilisers, chemicals and technical assistance.
Minister Ncube said the strategy framework seeks to rope in the financial sector, as coffee farmers need a comprehensive financial system that understands what is involved in coffee production.
“It takes three years for the coffee crop to mature from seed to harvest and coffee producers need access to long-term financing. So we need a financial system that understands that.
“That will also be included in the strategy framework.
“We expect in two months to have completed crafting the coffee industry strategy framework and have it adopted as Government policy thereafter, obviously that will be after it goes to Cabinet.
“Its implementation will be as soon as Cabinet adopts it.
“If we delay in implementing it, it will mean that as a country we would have lost another year in potential exports as the coffee tree takes three years to mature,” explained Prof Ncube.
Meanwhile, coffee industry stakeholders gathered in Mutare last week to identify what is needed to restore the coffee industry to its former glory.
“Without vibrant commercial coffee production, small communal coffee growers cannot exist, for technical and economic reasons,” said Ambassador Xavier Marchal, head of the EU delegation.
“Zimbabwe needs to develop coffee production by small producers for social and political reasons. Small communal farmers and large commercial farmers need necessarily to develop and cherish their symbiotic relationship. It’s a question of survival for all.
“And this was to become the basis of what has been ever since called the ‘Coffee Initiative’ spearheaded by the European Commission. Unfortunately, it has unnecessarily failed so far.
“But the potential is significant in terms of coffee playing a significant role in the Zimbabwe economy and for Zimbabweans: coffee is in increasing demand worldwide,” said Ambassador Marchal.
Ambassador Marchal believes that if the coffee industry is allowed to stabilise and become self-sustaining, there will be tremendous opportunities for growth by attracting and promoting new entrants to the coffee industry.
This will, in turn, play a positive role in improving the living standards of vulnerable communities, creating employment and improving the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) and have an effect on the national economy.
Zimbabwe coffee has generally been of high quality and production reached a peak of 15 000 tonnes back in 1990, making the country a notable player in world coffee supply.
Today Brazil is responsible for about a third of all coffee production, rendering it by far the heavyweight champion of the coffee-producing world.