2 Comments

1. 

   Gerry Nicholls on November 16, 2016 at 12:44 pm

   Terrific but is this sustainable in a kleptocracy where journalists are silenced by jail and murder and farmers are imprisoned and murdered by government troops? Many hundreds in recent months according to Amnesty Inernational. A statement to this affect should be rammed down the government’s throat at every opportunity. Of course the ECX (commodity exchange dictatorship which makes it illegal for families to grow and drink the coffee out of their own gardens) is hand in hand with the hyenas in government. The idea that coffee now has a barcode to identify source is laughable. It’s like saying French wine is sourced by putting ‘France’ on the label. The coffee beans are all mixed up and then you can always bribe officials for further clarity. beautiful country being destroyed by the government and ECX.

2. 

   Max Nicholas-Fulmer on November 16, 2016 at 2:30 pm

   Hi Gerry, and thank you for your considered comments, and for reading our blog. You raise several issues that deserve attention. Ethiopia is indeed a country with serious problems. The concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few elite, at the expense of ordinary people and various ethnic minorities is a problem not limited to Ethiopia. The recent crackdowns on the press and the heavy-handed response to ethnic protests are extremely worrying. Indeed, it is a dark time for those who value freedom of expression the world over. It has been argued elsewhere that perhaps the global coffee industry ought to boycott Ethiopian coffee, to send a message to the ruling class of that country that these violations of civil liberty will not be tolerated. From my perspective, this would only serve to further punish those who have already suffered the most: the peasant class, the farmers, the coffee producers themselves. Royal Coffee abhors the use of violence and intimidation, but I do not think that a boycott is the correct solution. Regarding the ECX, I would argue strongly that while hardly a perfect system, it has in fact accomplished two incredible things: 1. A higher average cherry price in the field, meaning farmers are receiving more for their crop than under prior regimes. 2. Price transparency. The placement of real-time price boards in cities like Dilla and Djimmah has allowed farmers previously unheard of access to the actual market value of their coffee. This is something that should not be discounted. For years, the buyers in Addis jealously guarded the international market value of their countries coffees. Today, I would say a larger percentage of the FOB price than ever before makes it back to the farmer himself. While the ECX needs a lot of work, and I agree with you entirely about the ridiculous bar code idea, scrapping the system and boycotting Ethiopian coffee altogether do not strike me as the most prudent responses to the recent Government atrocities.

   Sincerely,
   Max Fulmer
   CEO, Royal Coffee, Inc.