Crop to Cup Forum

[taylorm]

Continuing a discussion from Daniel Humphries' Coffee Blog (link here) about Ugandan coffee farmers pulping in one place and drying in another...

First off, props to Daniel's new blog space! Daniels’ Coffee Blog has always been a very educational and entertaining site, and now it’s even easier to manage and enjoy. Check it often, since he's most likely off doing much cooler things than the rest of us. i.e. live life through Daniel.

Thanks for your roastin’ and cuppin' skills Daniel! I agree - the drying problem is a big one, especially for farmers on Bugisu’s Mt. Elgon. There are many issues behind this, from education/training, to lack of capital, to lack of local banking systems, to topography and rainfall. I can't tell you how many moldy bags of coffee I’ve seen in Uganda - it really makes me sad. Here are but a few of the causes of mold and other processing problems. I’ve also suggested a few general solutions (surely a separate discussion topic should be dedicated to the intricacies of a proper, comprehensive solution)

1. CAPITAL
As we all know, proper drying requires access to capital, and the majority of the thousands and thousands of smallholder family farmers on Mt. Elgon do not have access to much. Proper drying racks and stands (that won't rot after 1-2 years of service) are not as cheap as one may think. Solution? Capital (for proper equipment).

2. SPACE
The topography and population density on Elgon permits no estates or large ‘technified’ farms, so most trees are literally in the "backyards" of the Bugisus - one small plot here, another small plot there, 500-5,000 trees total, interspersed with banana trees, vanilla, eucalyptus, tomatoes, avocado trees, etc. So not only is capital limited, but so is space. Clearing away space for drying racks means clearing away space for crops to eat and sell (or a goat or cow to graze). Plus, during the year's many non-harvest months, this also means land not producing income or food. Solution? Better intercropping training (grow more, varied plants in one area), and capital for better transport.

And those are just the problems when you don’t I have racks on your property.

3. INADEQUATE PRACTICES BY FARMERS WITH RACKS
Many farmers or small Producer Organizations (POs, about 25 farmers each) have drying racks on their property or a shared plot, but these are many times used incorrectly. Some farmers try to dry too thick of a layer at one time (e.g. If you haven't been able to buy enough racks or clear a large enough space to build enough stands), or don't turn the coffee on these racks, so the top dries while the bottom layer does not. It rains nearly ever afternoon during harvest season, so if a farmer forgets to bring in the racks (IF there is a covered space nearby), or if a farmer doesn't have tarpaulins to cover the racks (i.e. access to capital to buy quality tarpaulins), then the wet parchment ("block") never has the chance to correctly dry to parchment form. Solution? Capital, and training.

4. TOPOGRAPHY AND RAINFALL
Why do farmers encounter these problems, and not just sell their red cherries to a local washing station that has the proper infrastructure? Not all farmers have a washing station nearby, and elevation changes in this region are drastic, so if it's raining then good luck getting your cherries to the station before they start fermenting in their skins. Don't have a tractor or a truck that can brave the roads/trails? Your bicycle can't manage the ankle-deep mud? You don't have the energy or time to lug 100 lbs of cherries on your back (in the slippery mud)? Then it looks like you're stuck with cherries on your farm, in which case you better pulp and dry on your own. Solution? Capital for better transport (motorcycle, tractor, etc), training, and a plan for efficient usage/sharing (mountain routes, weather forecasting) for whatever transport solution available to each community.

5. ACCESS TO BANKS AND SAVINGS INSTITUTIONS
Some farmers also prefer to process to parchment form on their own, since it works like a bank account. You can't stock coffee cherries and sell them when you need to pay school fees (since they will rot), but if you pulp and dry to parchment form on your own, then you can begin to save large stocks without rotting, and sell them off when you need to buy equipment, when food crops aren't producing enough revenue or food for your family, or when you need to pay the year's school fees for your children (and many of these families ain't small). Without access to savings institutions nearby (the closest one is about 2 hours walk down the road from where we have bought coffee in the past), this is the only form of savings in the region.

This is unfortunate, since farmers can earn more from their coffee crop if they sell in cherry form instead of parchment form. Cherry and parchment prices are higher now, but, just to provide an example from when I was based in Bugisu, I've seen dry premium parchment rates (i.e well cleaned and dried) at 2,500 Uganda Shillings per kilo. At the same time, cherry rates were at 600 Shillings per kilo. Basic cherry to parchment ratio for the Bugisu bean is 5:1 (5 kilos cherry pulp and dry down to 1 kilo parchment), so from the same number of coffee cherries off the tree, a farmer can receive 3,000 UGX for selling fresh or 2,500 UGX (500x5) for selling in dry parchment. Washing stations pay cherry premium because they can process a better quality coffee and export green for a premium. Farmer training programs (carried out often in these regions by washing station operators) concentrate heavily on this equation, but still, farmers see 2,500 instead of 500 and think they're getting a deal. Middlemen willing to buy beans of any color and moisture level don’t help either. Even worse, farmers are not even figuring in the cost of the pulping machines, tarpaulins, drying racks, labor, etc for processing down to parchment on their own. So, get paid 500 Shillings more per kilo, AND do less work? Solution? Training and access to savings institutions.

____
So, those are some of the reasons why farmers may chose to pulp and dry coffee on their own, instead of sell off their fresh cherries to the local washing station which, as Daniel's own cupping results confirms, results in a far better cup. When the importer pays premiums (like we do) for premium coffee that, in this area and at this time, can only be attained by the local washing stations, then farmers not only benefit from higher incomes from selling cherries instead of selling parchment, they also see premiums when the coffee is exported (in the form of off-season bonuses).

This is how it is so easy for coffee to mold or show other defects brought on by errors between the tree and dry parchment stage (let’s remember that we’re not just talking about mold here). But, as we can see here, it's not such an easy problem to solve.

- A small amount of capital can buy you some drying racks and tarpaulins, but maybe not the space to use them. Could buy you a bike too, but not one that could help you on half the region's trails.
- Training can teach you to not pick underripe beans and sell cherry instead of parchment, but it won’t stop the rain, or buy you a tractor to brave the mud.
- And neither puts a savings bank in your backyard.

This is why I feel that it is so important to take a combined approach to coffee quality and community development. At C2C we call it the Triple Keytsone approach, and, assuming we can line up the proper partners in Uganda (it’s a massive undertaking, and we can’t go it alone), it's going to be the next project we support with the percentages of our roasted coffee sales and profits that we reinvest in farmer communities. Every coffee growing region has its own issues, and I believe that sustainability programs should be tailored to communities, not only applied generally by some certification label.

Capital, Training and Savings Institutions. In the Bugisu region at least, that’s the only sustainable solution we believe is out there.

Other approaches? Criticisms? Please post them here. Or if you want to get involved in the Triple Keystone Project, contact me.

__
(note that to respond to this post you need to join through www.croptocup.com/join (for spam reasons you can't join through the "Register" links on this Forum's pages)
_________________
Taylor Mork
Director, Crop to Cup Coffee Company
New York, NY
taylor@croptocup.com

[taylorm]

also check out Daniel's posting on coffeed here. http://www.coffeed.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=2021
_________________
Taylor Mork
Director, Crop to Cup Coffee Company
New York, NY
taylor@croptocup.com

[Fresh Grind]

Good thread, and a discussion that need continuing.

I’d like to add the question – in the smallholder context, where hundreds of family farms contribute to one container of coffee, is it better for coffee quality to decentralize pulping and drying processes to the farm level, or aim for consistency by centralizing these functions at a washing station?

I don’t know.

The logic behind village-based washing stations is to promote consistency – if all coffee is purchased in red cherry, and then pulped, washed and dried consistently, the line goes that the coffee should be cleaner in the cup.

However, farm-gate price for parchment are typically five time the price for cherry (i.e. $.35 a kilo for cherry vs $1.49 a kilo of parchment). This means that farmers want to pulp and dry their own coffee, because it seems like they get more money.

Now, the math on weight loss between coffee berries (cherry) and parchment (pulped) is 5:1, meaning that the pulp and juice of a coffee berry makes up 80% of a cherry’s weight.

So if you do the math on weight loss (and subtract the cost of pulping/drying the coffee), then it is clear that selling cherry is better for everyone.

However, there has been a recent push to provide low-tech washing units to farmers (this program is spearheaded by APEP). One result of this initiative would be that the region would produce more semi-washed coffee instead of fully-washed coffee – which is ok, just a matter of taste. Another implication for farmers who live far from collection areas is that they would be able to take 5 times the amount of premium, semi-washed coffee to market at one time, instead of lugging a basket of heavy cherries for miles.

Anyone have thoughts on this?

Incidentally, the coffee Daniel liked (5010) came from three washing stations:

1) Manafwa
2) Gibuzaale/Buginyanya
3) Budadiri

I don’t think that it was chance that he (and I) prefer the stuff bought in cherry form, as the alternative is to buy coffee in parchment form (known as bulk). If it is in parchment form there is no knowing for sure (until cupping) the quality of that coffee because no matter how good a farmer is at his/her craft, when they have bills to pay and early harvest comes around, sometimes coffee gets picked early.[/url]