The two major varieties of coffee are indigenous to Africa; the Arabica coffee bean, which comes from the highlands of Ethiopia and the Robusta, which is native to the forests of Uganda and the Congo. Ironically, coffee makes more money for the Western world than it does for the Africans who grow it. The reason therein can be found in the price regulation policies adopted by the developed countries to profit them at the expense of the rest of the world, Africa often bearing the brunt. After the Vietnam War the World Bank encouraged the Vietnamese to plant Robusta coffee plants, resulting in a huge infusion of lower grade coffee that caused a reduction in price. In the 1980’s the United States of America withdrew its support from the International Coffee Organization and its International Coffee Agreement which guaranteed a fair price. Until the termination of this agreement, a pound of coffee did not go beneath a dollar. However, the collapse of the agreement resulted in chaos for the coffee growers around the world. Certainly, a lot of people were, and still are, making money from the sale of coffee. That is, except the coffee farmers around the world and particularly in Africa. In African countries like Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya and Ethiopia, coffee sells for fifty cents a pound. However, in the developed world, a pound of coffee is sold for around four dollars and that is when you manage to get it at a bargain price, otherwise it is sold for over ten dollars a pound. According to statistics, five grams of roasted coffee are necessary to make one cup of coffee that sells for two to three dollars at Starbucks -a trendy coffee shop similar to Bourbon Café in Rwanda that specializes in blending coffee beverages. One pound of coffee can make one hundred cups of coffee that go for two hundred to three hundred dollars. Green coffee beans are sold for an average price of fifty cents per pound. And, even more dismal a statistic, according to African Insights blog, the African coffee growers receive less than half of a percent of the cost of processed coffee Coffee prices have continued to fall because of the lack of laws that to protect the farmers from the developed world’s sharks who continue to make a quick buck at the expense of the rural farmers. When prices for raw coffee are slashed, as they continuously are, the prices of coffee in these coffee shops are not cut accordingly, making the coffee manufacturing companies like Nestle even richer while the African coffee farmers get even poorer. Instead of giving Africa aid, which imprisons us, the Western world should instead create an equitable market for African coffee thus enabling African coffee growers compete favourably on the world market. One would argue that African coffee is of a low grade compared to one that is processed and sold by say Nestle. This is because African coffee farmers were encouraged by the colonial powers to mass produce and send the raw products to the Western world for refinement. This is not excuse enough, so African coffee growers have realized and have formed associations to finds ways of selling higher grade coffee so as to get out of their poverty cycle. An example of this is Rwenzori coffee which is better grade than most coffee growers used to produce; also Rwandan coffee is getting a hold of the world market, courtesy of the aggressive marketing technique employed by the country Ends
