In Rwanda Coronavirus restrictions increase labor costs for coffee farmers

May 8, 2020

Yesterday The Conversation, an on-line newpaper targeting the academic community published an article on how the Coronavirus pandemic is affecting coffee the coffee supply chain in Rwanda. Two researchers we know at Michigan State University are the authors - Andrew Gerard and David L. Ortega. Click here to read! It is a short article and well written.

A key take-away from the article is that "health restrictions are increasing coffee production costs in Rwanda..."  At Artisan Coffee Imports we have also been investigating the impacts of Rwanda's Coronavirus policies on coffee farmers. Our informal research confirms that costs of production are going to be high for farmers this year due to the increased labor costs. Labor is known to be about 75% of all costs for coffee farmers in Rwanda, (click here for source), and harvesting labor is 36% of that total labor figure.

Click here to hop over to our "Resiliency Coffee Blog" and read a summary of 10 interviews with female farmers conducted April 22 - 27, 2020, which is right near peak of the coffee harvest season for Rutsiro district, where they are.

Producer Concerns Addressed at Upcoming Farm Profitability Panel

Specialty Coffee Association's Expo in Seattle is just around the corner, Apr. 19 - 22. It's touted as the largest annual global meeting of the specialty coffee industry. Come join this amazing convention of producers and buyers from all over the world!

Part of the draw is the high-caliber learning opportunities attendees have. Among the 30 lectures over three days, Artisan Coffee Imports will be proud to represent Michigan State University and the Feed the Future Africa Great Lakes Coffee Support Program on one of the them addressing farm profitability from a global research perspective:

"Farm Profitability: Impact of Best Practices." Friday, Apr. 20, 9:00 - 10:15am (PST), TCC Tahoma 5, Washington State Convention Center in Seattle

Come to this lecture to gain insights on a topic near and dear to producers hearts -- does it pay-off to invest time and money in best practices (e.g. pruning, renovation, mulching, careful weeding, applying fertilizers and pesticides)? Will the farmer make more money? This is often an underlying assumption in farm-related projects large (e.g. World Coffee Research, Starbucks) and small (a small roaster trying to help their direct trade partner).

So "come on down" to hear what the recent research on this topic says. Yes, you got it right. We will be sharing and discussing facts and data -- because in coffee, we value facts and research!

This global panel brings together a moderator and presenters from five corners of the world:

Paulo van der Ven, Managing Director, RD2, based in Saint Mathieu de Tréviers, France

Mark Lundy, Senior Researcher, Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical, CIAT, based in Cali, Colombia

Paul Stewart, Global Coffee Director at TechnoServe, based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia,

Ruth Ann Church, President, Artisan Coffee Imports, Ruth Ann worked in Rwanda from 2015 - 2016, and now resides in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Our moderator is Kraig Kraft, Agroecologist at Catholic Relief Services, based in Managua, Nicaragua

Farmer Field School in Rwanda

Learning best practices

Producers in Burundi participating in course to improve quality.

Applying fertilizer in Rwanda

Coffee Savvy University of California Davis

Dec. 4, 2017

Last week I had the pleasure of taking a tour of the University of California at Davis with other board members of the International Women's Coffee Alliance. Six board members were hosted by Dr. Bill Ristenpart, Director of the UC Davis Coffee Center and an endowed professor of chemical engineering, and Sarah Hodge, assistant director of development for the college of engineering.

We started at the large, modern and impressive Robert Mondavi Institute (RMI) for Wine and Food Science. The RMI was designed primarily to support crops and foods grown in California, thus coffee was always left out -- until now. It started in 2013 with 18 undergrad students who signed up for Prof. Bill's first chemical engineering lab called "Design of Coffee." One textbook, one large donation from Chevron and four years later, there are 1,500 undergraduates who go through one of the three sessions of this course every year.  Along the way, Dr. Ristenpart and his colleague, Dr. Tonya Kuhl, have found much enthusiasm throughout California's coffee industry as well as unmet research needs.

Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science

Cavernous high-bay filled with digitally monitored equipment for wine-making tests.

Students learning wine-making at RMI

Coffee lab signs in the chem engineering lab windows.

Undergrads learning chemistry through coffee.

For example, a filter company has hired the UC Davis "coffee team" to do a scientific study of the taste differences between coffee brewed using conical vs. flat-bottomed filters. Actually controlling all of the variables to isolate changes in taste due to the filter shape is an incredible job, we found out! A post-doc is spending his days training the recruited tasting volunteers, practicing how he will serve the volunteers the same coffee at the same temperature, brewed in equipment the same in almost every way except the filter.

Special lighting for the booths where trained coffee tasters will sit.

Pass-thru holes in the wall to put fresh-brewed coffee before the tasters.

Post-doc explains the rigors of scientifically testing coffee taste differences.

We were also taken to what will one day be a stand-alone building for the UC Davis coffee center, just as there is a wine and food science building. The coffee building is smaller, but is a beautiful location just the same. Already, there are rooms sponsored by Peet's, Curtis and the Nicaraguan Coffee group. There are large roasters still in crates donated by Probat.

Donated Probat roasters in crates.

6 IWCA board members and Dr. Bill Ristenpart. I'm 2nd from the right.

Having just completed my master's degree in coffee value chains at Michigan State University (MSU), I quizzed the chemical engineering professor pretty hard about how well UC Davis could address the socio-economic research issues related to coffee. He indicated they would attempt to fill that part of the research agenda also, but it's pretty clear that is not the strong-point of UC Davis. They are well-suited to provide tasting/sensory, brewing and roasting research. Most likely, Texas A&M will remain the go-to university for coffee bio-agronomy, and most likely, MSU will remain the premier institution for studying agricultural extension and agricultural economics of the coffee value chain. Sustainable livelihoods, equity and food security are all areas of excellence at MSU with dozen of faculty working in developing countries across the globe. Given MSU's Center for Gender in the Global Context and its ranking as the #1 packaging school, it would be an easy link to include gender studies and coffee packaging science in some future "Coffee Research Center" in East Lansing! Hmm, have to keep these ideas brewing.

Meanwhile, hats off to UC Davis for showing the way and leading the charge to better coffee science!

Back in Detroit - with fine Spartans billboard

April 13, 2015:

Back in Detroit after red-eye flight from Seattle. Ironically, this is the billboard on the skybridge from terminal to parking structure (see photo). MSU ad featuring my advisor, Dan Clay, in Rwanda. (See YouTube video: "Rwanda rebirth" for more of the story)

At SCAA, the new Roast Magazine issue was distributed with my feature article on Rwanda and Burundi, "A New Focus on Farm-Level Economics" which uses the same great photo from Jim Peck, Michigan State University.

Burundi Agricultural Project (BAP) Comes to a Close

November 29, 2012
Today I was able to visit with Dr. Dan Clay at Michigan State University (MSU), he's the Director of Global Programs in Sustainable Agri-food Systems. It's a bittersweet time for Dr. Clay as tomorrow will mark the end of a 5 year, $20 million USAID grant program called the "Burundi Agriculture Program" or BAP. The lead on the program was Development Alternatives International (DAI) and the technical coffee-related portion was contracted to MSU.

The purpose of the project was to develop the value chain for three critical products: coffee, horticulture (flowers) and dairy. Work in coffee was designed to elevate knowledge across the coffee growing sector about technologies to improve quality and to provide new market linkages. Through these methods, small farmers with coffee could improve household incomes.

Burundi is a country whose agroecology and well-developed coffee infrastructure support the production of highly prized “mild arabicas,” and where political will is being mobilized to realize this remarkable potential.

An exciting outcome of the project is a website that provides not only technical but many visual and cultural insights on Burundi. Check out: www.cafedeburundi.com. For coffee roasters and importers who appreciate transparency, you will be amazed with the site's interactive map and listing of all the washing stations: http://www.cafeduburundi.com/processing/coffee-washing-stations/.

Another impressive deliverable Dr. Clay showed me was before-and-after maps of each of 12 "technologies" brought to coffee growing regions across the country. The maps visually showed (with small circles that grew to large circles) to what extent important technologies like pre-selecting cherries or using water-efficient de-pulping equipment, had been adopted. There was also an intensity measure incorporated, indicating MSU's involvement on a level of 1-4. These maps accomplished the often difficult task of quickly conveying how where MSU had been working intensely, there was a correlated increased rate of adoption of new technologies.

Michigan State University has definitely set the bar high for future work in developing specialty coffee markets and making wholistic paraticipation by the entire industry possible!