Coffee

Tuesday morning is big coffee business in Nairobi at the Kenya Coffee Board and Auction Room on Hallie Sellasie Avenue South East of the CBD. As I sat in the back right hand corner of what feels like a university lecture hall as with all things economical in Kenya - the disparity is the first thing I noticed.

The farmers seem to sit on the right side of the hall who have been struggling for quite a while to remove some of the middle supply-chain obstacles to them getting more of the revenue margin on their crops. I was told that new legislation is going into place to allow the farmers to sell their crops either at the auction house or now, independantly to roasters and buyers on the world market. For example, JJ Bean is a Vancouver roaster that sells Kenyan coffee - so a farmer who grows coffee North of Nairobi could contact them directly now and do a deal instead of at least 3 levels of middle-person supply chain and thus, loss of profit. Kinda like Dell Computers - why pay someone in the middle when you've got the goods? The growth of technology here means a farmer could create sales oppportunities through the internet and the end buyer can use this tactic for value-added marketing - "We buy from the little guy!" If we trade, we don't need to aid.

The middle of the room seems to be where the action takes place and the spending occurs. One guy said he spends a million USD every Tuesday in Nairobi buying coffee that he will then sell to foreign roasters. This must be where the bulk of the money on coffee is made in Kenya - the brokers, the dealers, the ones in the middle like anything in life who work both sides. The guys with the ties and the clean shoes - the entrepreneurs who travel farther and faster and turn this experience into opportunity.

On the left side of the room it didn't quite seem as clear to me who this group was. They definately weren't farmers and they didn't seem to be doing anything so my guess is they were large scale producers watching their lots go up in value. The whole thing was quite deflating actually considering how much money is made in this room every week and month - I was hoping for some yelling and screaming like in the old days but the exchange has been computerized so everyone is very focussed on reading what's going across the big red screen and reading paperwork.

Coffee is one of Kenya's biggest commodity exports that has traditionally been value-added offshore in the retail markets. The big guys like Starbuck's know what it means to say "Grown in the Kenyan sun" whereas I would think a small Kenyan farmer would likely read this and think, 'of course our sun is in Kenya'. Access to markets is one of the biggest issues here all over Africa but access to 'marketing' is almost more important as consumers are growing increasingly aggressive in finding and purchasing fair-trade products be it coffee or clothing. But they have to see it and internalize the visualization of this and the farmers need to learn how.

I look at the dirty blue baseball cap of the farmer sitting in front of me in the exchange and wonder how many people in his family is he feeding. How far does he have to stretch his sale today? How hard has he worked to physically and experientially bring his product to market? And if he had the opportunity to put on a fancy suit and head off on an international trade mission to promote his brand would somehow the lives of his small rural community get better? Farmers all over the world are unhappy and it doesn't make sense. There has to be a way for all of us to get what we need and be able to sit back at the end of a long day and believe that tomorrow will bring good things. We are too smart as humans for all this poverty - our trade systems are too sophisticated to accept that producers are unhappy. If they slow, or fail to survive - what do the rest of us do?

Thinking back to all the cups of 'English Breakfast Tea' I have consumed over the years with milk and sugar and gratefulness I am surprised it has taken me so long to be more aware that tea doesn't grow in England. When I go into the small stores to buy my food here I pick up a big bag of Kenyan tea that has a simple label on it, packed full of bags and quality and value and it is so clear to me how the changes coming to Kenya could and should benefit the average citizen working hard to feed their families. They have to get into the 'value-added' game to be able to stand proud and say 'Kenyan Breakfast Tea' and that's why it costs more because it's some of the best in the world and that's fair trading. We fly all the way to Paris for croissants, and to Montreal for smoked beef - why not to Kenya for coffee and tea?

After all my research in the last 2 months of creating a business to work in the US and Kenya I think I am slowing coming to the conclusion I am here to stay. There is so much opportunity, so many amazingly ingenius people, such a great opening for Kenya to be an emerging small tiger of an economy that increasingly it seems this is the place to be for me. I have to revert back to my original name of THE CHILDREN'S PHOTOGRAPHIC GALLERY OF KENYA too as the president used INAWEZEKANA for his last election slogan and proprietarizing Swahili words is quite political right now especially I feel for a foreigner. So it's back to the cpgkenya - my original vision four years ago and the plan to build the most beautiful art gallery the world has ever seen. Right here in the place of cold water, doing business with Kenya.

Design Studio of the Week - "Paro Cultural Project" (Ambira Rd, Nairobi)

dbwa, Sue