Author: Guardian Africa Network

Zimbabwe’s coffee farmers struggle amid global boom and political gloom

A misty dawn has not yet given way to daylight in Zimbabwe’s eastern highlands. Lenard Moyo, a coffee farmer near Chipinge town, is prising red arabica beans out of their trees and putting them in his bag – as he does every morning during harvest season. “It’s hard when it’s so cold outside, but we have to pick them early,” he said.

A woman harvests ripe coffee berries. [Pic: Reuters]

Zimbabwe’s coffee belt has the perfect growing conditions for the beans: high mountain peaks and cool climates, and the country used to be famous for its “super-high-quality” product, slowly sun-dried, and tasting smooth and fruity. In the 1990s it produced some of the best coffee in the world, alongside South America and Kenya, generating crucial foreign currency and a livelihood for many labourers and small-scale farmers, as well as the big commercial farms.

But today the industry is in decline: many of the mills have been abandoned, farmers are in debt, and Zimbabwe produces just 60 “bags” of coffee beans a year compared with 250 bags in 1988 – with one bag amounting to 60 tonnes of coffee.

Earlier this year the European Union announced €10m (R132-million) in aid to Zimbabwe’s medium and small-scale farmers, in an attempt to revive the industry. But there’s a catch. “Coffee is an important crop and we’ll consider funding requests from small farmers provided the land involved is not in dispute,” Aldo Dell’Ariccia, head of the EU delegation to Zimbabwe, told the CAJ news agency.

Moyo said this caveat disqualified the majority of farmers. “Most of our small coffee plots are on land being contested in court by former white farmers. We’ll simply not qualify,” he said.

The disputes began in 2000, when young militants loyal to the president, Robert Mugabe, stormed white-owned farms to reclaim the land. At the time, Moyo was what was known as an “out-grower” – a black farmer owning a small plot of land next to a large commercial farm, relying on his neighbours for finance, expertise and machinery.

Production plummets
“First, [the militants] pruned down our coffee beans and burned hectares of trees in a week of rage. Coffee drying pens were turned into nurseries for marijuana and wild vegetables,” he said. “The new farm owners wanted instant profit but a coffee tree once planted takes three to five years to mature.”

Production plummeted as the new landowners could not secure bank loans to buy fertilisers or repair ageing infrastructure. Many were new to the business, and lacked the expertise to keep quality high.

In turn, international buyers began to shun Zimbabwean coffee, and in 2010 the Mutare Coffee Mill, considered one of the best in Africa, was forced to shut down. It required at least 4 000 tonnes of coffee to operate profitably but was receiving just 300.

And while Zimbabwean coffee growers struggle, elsewhere the industry is booming. Ten years ago the average cost of a tonne of coffee was $1 400, now it can fetch up to $4,000 (R39 400), according to the International Coffee Organisation.

“Zimbabwe is losing billions of dollars annually as the price of coffee has increased to about $3 per pound, up from $1 per pound in the 90s,” Gifford Trevor, president of Zimbabwe’s Coffee Growers Association, told News24.

Most of the country’s coffee farmers lack cash reserves to support themselves when the crop fails or yields are low, according to World Vision. The charity is training farmers and offering much-needed supplies such as fertilisers, irrigation systems and pesticides. But the farmers are still unable to compete with better organised growers in countries such as Rwanda, Kenya and Malawi.

Suppliers at a disadvantage
The global coffee industry is also stacked against suppliers, with the bulk of the profit going to those further up the chain.

In August, on a sponsored trip to Johannesburg, 39-year-old Moyo tasted his first cappuccino. “I thought it was bitter lemon,” he said. He was particularly horrified to pay $3 for one cup, compared with the $5.30 he receives for a bag of raw coffee beans.

Peter Multz, a former consultant for the Dutch charity SNV, which works with Zimbabwean farmers to improve their business skills, said most of the profit went to shippers, roasters and retailers. He said Zimbabwean farmers also faced particular problems.

“Sometimes the coffee is delayed at border crossings for up to a week, and without proper facilities the beans go bad. Sometimes buyers have to pay a bribe to let their coffee shipments go through,” he said.

With a more stable economy and western governments starting to release aid, Zimbabwean farmers hope that the country’s coffee industry will recover. But for Moyo times are still hard: “I can’t even pay my farm workers and coffee pickers properly,” he said. “Sometimes we reward them with milk, soya meals, and clothes after every harvest. As we say here, cash is a crunch.”

Ray Mhondera for the Guardian Africa Network. Mhondera is editor of The Africa Scientist Magazine.

11 years ago

Ghana’s first farmers’ market: ‘We need more like this’

There are some things about public gatherings in Ghana’s capital Accra that are guaranteed. A certain amount of dust and Atlantic spray on the breeze, a sound system blaring Azonto – a local music sensation – just a bit too loud, fearless children lining up to show off their moves, and an orderly row of canopies where the hot and the tired sit down on plastic chairs and take stock.

But if you looked a little closer at the fair in Ako Adjei park on Saturday, you would have found that what appeared a typical Accra event was quietly masking something quite unusual: a farmers’ market. The dozen or so small-scale producers selling their wares at The Accra Green Market were busily making history as participants in Ghana’s first ever fair for locally grown, sustainable, organic produce.

A fruit seller holds six-day old eggplants from Ghana. (Pic: AFP)

“This is a great way to give exposure to organic, local products,” says Jeffrey Mouganie, 22, founder of Moco Foods, an organic company that produces local forest honey and fiery chilli sauce, guaranteeing a traceable supply chain and hiring workers with disabilities. “The only space we usually get to market our products are at the bazaars of international schools, where we sell to a lot of expats,” he says. “But we need more markets like this – the best feedback we have had for our products is from Ghanaians.”

Moco’s Savannah Honey, on sale here for 10 Ghana cedis – approximately £3 (R45) – is being exported to the UK where it will go on sale at Harrods and Selfridges for what the producers expect to be around five times that price. Also on sale, organic mushroom wine – said to be a treatment for practically every medical condition from sclerosis to high blood pressure, asthma and “sexual weakness” – pak choi, gloriously frothy-leaved heads of broccoli, watermelon, small, knobbly carrots, and tough-skinned, tangy nectarines full of seeds and sweet-sour juice.

The organisers of the market believe they are part of a new trend towards sustainable, organic and local food, which they say goes hand in hand with the growth of Ghana’s new middle class. “Things in Ghana are changing – it is no longer a poor country but a middle-income country. And because of that, people are more interested in what they eat,” says Edison Gwenda Abe, 29, founder of Agripro – a mobile application company that provides farmers with access to marketplaces and which organised the Accra Green Market. “In East Africa, farmers’ markets are already really popular, but in West Africa, there is nothing like this. We plan to take it to different locations in Ghana, and we have had interest from Nigeria too.”

New interest in organic food
Constance Korkoi Tengey, founder of Immaculate Gold Beads, Mushrooms and Snails, is typical of the kind of small-scale grower whose products the market is designed to showcase. An energetic 62-year-old who carefully dishes out mushroom sandwiches, mushroom salad and mushroom gari foto – a veggie version of a popular Ghanaian dish made from cassava tubers – Tengey began growing mushrooms in her back garden seven years ago and says sales are on the rise.

“I eat a lot of mushrooms as a substitute for meat, and I’ve noticed that I don’t gain as much weight, and it keeps me looking younger,” Tengey says. “People in Ghana are becoming more health-conscious these days, they are really showing an interest in my products. It’s a profitable business for me.”

But it’s not only shoppers who are fuelling Ghana’s new interest in organic food. The city’s ever expanding directory of hotels, restaurants and cafes has an insatiable appetite for local products and high quality produce. “There are a lot of new eateries bringing in foreign chefs, and as a result the quality is getting higher,” says Sadiq Banda, an organic grower in Accra who supplies some of the city’s five-star hotels.

“Chefs are always looking for the best produce, and there is a great need for more local food producers to supply them. The Ghanaian middle class is growing too, and becoming more interested in quality. But Ghanaians are still mainly interested in conspicuous consumption – they do not tend to spend money on high-quality things unless other people can see them doing it, and fresh produce is not yet a priority.”

Ghana may still have some way to go in grasping the concept of organic, whole foods. Alongside the organic avocados on one stall were tins of corned beef, canned sardines and mayonnaise, where young women were zealously composing “salad” – a concoction of oily, processed products with a dash of fresh vegetable to top it off. And Ghana being Ghana, there is a strong affection for the deep-fried. My taste award went to Tengey’s “Kentucky Fried Mushrooms” – not blessed with a name that conjures up all things fresh, small-scale and local, but they tasted quite simply amazing.

Afua Hirsch for the Guardian Africa Network

11 years ago

Barack Obama’s debt to Africa

His name hangs like a talisman across Africa, from the President Barack Obama High School in Nigeria to the Obama Barbershop in Tanzania, so delighted is the continent to have an American president it can call its own.

Yet Obama’s trip this week will be only his second to sub-Saharan Africa since he became president more than four years ago. His first was a flying 20-hour trip to Ghana in July 2009 (preceded weeks earlier by a stop in Egypt). So it’s no surprise that wherever he goes this week Obama will be faced with questions about how well he has treated his father’s homeland.

Two-year-old Princess Smith sits with her father Francis Smith as they await Obama’s arrival at the International Conference Centre in Accra on July 11 2009. (AFP)

For in the race to do business with an increasingly prosperous and opportunity-laden continent, America is lagging behind. The United States is no longer Africa’s leading trade partner; it lost that position to China in 2009. In contrast to Obama, the new Chinese president, Xi Jinping, visited the continent on his first trip abroad – an indication of its strategic importance to Beijing. It’s a perfect partnership: China needs resources and Africa wants cheap imports and investment. Countries such as Japan, Brazil and Turkey are also aggressively positioning themselves to get in on the act.

At the same time, the Obama administration appears to be struggling to develop a coherent African strategy. In August 2009, barely a year into the administration, Jendayi Frazer, US assistant secretary of state for African affairs during George Bush’s second term, lamented “the Obama administration’s penchant for lecturing Africans rather than listening.” Indeed Hillary Clinton, Obama’s first-term secretary of state, seemed to spend much of her time warning Africans to beware of China. Journalist Howard French wrote recently of the need to “put an end to the belittling, small ball ritual whereby African leaders are invited to Washington in groups of three or four (as if an African country by definition didn’t merit a one-on-one discussion), offered a quick photo opportunity, a few homilies about democracy and governance and then sent on their way”.

Obama’s much-vilified predecessor set a pretty impressive record of engagement with Africa. Under Bush II the US government launched Pepfar, a remarkably successful $15-billion commitment to tackling HIV and Aids. The Millennium Challenge Corporation, a US foreign aid organisation that rolls out poverty reduction programmes in developing countries (much of its work is in Africa), was established during the Bush era.

The Bush government left footprints across the continent beyond the aid arena. It played a role in the signing of the peace agreement that brought an end to decades of civil war in Sudan, showed a lot of interest in bringing an end to the wars in the Congo region, and helped bring about an end to the civil war in Liberia, helping ensure Charles Taylor’s resignation, and eventual arrest and prosecution. (Taylor has of course since wondered aloud why Bush is himself not facing prosecution for his own “crimes”).

Against this background of US, Obama comes across as positively neglectful. His only activity of note has been to ramp up US military activity in Africa, adding drone bases and deploying significant numbers of troops. When he was first elected there were celebrations across the continent, and perhaps unrealistic expectations that he would champion African interests on the world stage. Indeed on his first visit to Ghana, he declared that he had “the blood of Africa within me”. Since then his absence has been keenly felt, sparking accusations that he has betrayed his roots.

But is this fair? Does Obama have a special responsibility to the continent, because of his ancestry? Perhaps not. Perhaps the emphasis on Obama as a black president is missing the point. Because it’s not just for reasons of solidarity that the US president should attend to Africa. There are more selfish reasons, both , economic and political, as well.

Barack Obama meets Senegal’s President Macky Sall for bilateral talks at the presidential palace in Dakar on June 27 2013. (AFP)

Africa, as the much-touted “last frontier” for global trade and investment, is today arguably more important than at any other time in its history. Obama would do well to provide more government support to American investors and entrepreneurs seeking to do business in Africa, and to nudge Congress to relax limitations on the US export-import bank’s mandates. To allow the continent to increase its share of global trade – currently only about three percent – America ought to lead the way in abolishing unfair trade tariffs and agricultural subsidies. America can and should also do more to use its clout to deter the global flow of the proceeds of African corruption – whether it’s stolen crude or laundered money – and impose sanctions on the beneficiaries.

“Two-term presidents traditionally devote most of their second terms to foreign policy, which they can control with less interference by Congress,” wrote journalist Jonathan Alter in The Promise, his book on Obama’s first year in office.

The world will be watching to see if that holds true for Obama, and how much of this devotion will be directed at the continent where his father was born and lies buried, and where there’s so much opportunity to leave a lasting presidential legacy without having to break America’s bank.

Tolu Ogunlesi for the Guardian Africa Network

12 years ago

Celebrity pastor under fire after stampede for ‘holy water’

It’s the middle of a working day, in the middle of the week, but the trickle of worshippers at the Synagogue Church of All Nations is quickly becoming a flood. Around 1 000 people sit silently on plastic chairs cooled by dozens of floor fans at the church – a building reminiscent of an aircraft hangar just off Accra’s industrial Spintex Road – watching its founder delivering a sermon on his own dedicated 24-hour TV channel, Emmanuel TV.

Temitope Balogun Joshua, popularly known as TB Joshua, founder of the Synagogue Church empire, is one of the biggest celebrities in West Africa. His regular Sunday services in Nigeria boasts attendance rates of around 15 000 and the Nigerian government has reported that the number of worshippers travelling to the church in Lagos have significantly boosted tourism to Nigeria.

TB Joshua (Pic: emmanuel.tv)

But he is an increasingly controversial figure in Ghana, after a deadly stampede at the Synagogue Church last Sunday left four people dead and at least 30 injured.

The worshippers were hoping to obtain holy “new anointing water”, which Emmanuel TV had announced would be distributed for free. “The anointing water usually costs 80 cedis, but we learned that on Sunday it would be given out for free,” said Joseph Adanvor (52) who witnessed the fatal stampede. “I have never seen anything like it before. People had come from Togo, Benin, even from Kenya. They tried to close the church but people were climbing over the walls and breaking in. The police and army were there but they couldn’t control the crowds.”

The police, who are investigating the deaths, said that they had not anticipated the number of people who would attend the church, with worshippers arriving from as early as 2am. “All of us were caught by surprise,” police spokesperson Freeman Tetteh told the BBC world service. ” No one knew the crowd will be so huge.”

The church declined to comment to the Guardian but earlier announced that it would pay the medical expenses for those injured in the incident. Reverend Sam Mc-Caanan told journalists that the church was “devastated”. “We have to do a thorough work around this to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” he said.

The stampede came two weeks after Nigeria-based Joshua made a rare personal appearance in Ghana, prompting tens of thousands of people to travel to the 1 500 capacity church to catch a glimpse of the self-styled “prophet”. The event created a crisis for the security services, bringing large parts of the capital Accra to a standstill.

Joshua is one of the most prominent pastors in Africa with a growing number of followers around the world. The church has branches in London and Athens, as well as Accra, and Ghana’s late president John Atta Mills, who died last year, was a prominent follower, whilst a host of other public figures and celebrities claim to have been healed by the pastor. But he has attracted controversy for his significant wealth – with American magazine Forbes estimating that the pastor was worth up to $15-million, and for the sale of products including anointing water and car stickers to people hoping to free themselves from poverty.

“I personally believe there is a level of exploitation going on here, with churches selling things like anointing water and car stickers,” said Apostle Samuel Yaw Antwi, general secretary of the Ghana Charismatic and Pentecostal Council. “Jesus Christ never sold any of these things.”

Belief in the healing powers of pastors and special oils and waters which they claim to have blessed is widespread in Ghana, with products often sold for a profit. “I myself have bought the anointing water, and I have seen the miracles it performs,” said Adanvor. “My father was suffering from pain in his leg. When I sprayed the water, and after praying, the pain went away.”

“It’s like in Jesus’ time,” Adanvor added. “He did a lot of miracles so a lot of people followed him. Now we see that God can manifest again. When people come to the church, if they pray and they believe, they are healed.”

(A screenshot of a broadcast on Emmanuel TV)

In addition to purchasing anointing water and other products, members of the church tithe by contributing 10% of their monthly income, and also give offerings at church services. However, worshippers say that the church is popular because it does not demand payment for healing – a practice common among other churches in the region.

“The problem we have in this country is the type of Christianity people are practising whereby, instead of seeking to know God through his work and a relationship with the holy spirit which is assured to every Christian, are running after signs of miracles,” said Antwi.

“People want instant solutions to their problems, just like they want instant coffee. If anybody comes along offering instant answers to financial or health challenges, people want to go for it. But the Bible warns Christians about that.”

Afua Hirsch for the Guardian Africa Network.

12 years ago

Zambia’s latest crackdown on gays

A gay couple in Zambia has been arrested after police were tipped off about their relationship by one of the men’s relatives, local media reported.

The crackdown comes weeks after a human rights activist was detained for publicly demanding that same sex relations be decriminalised.

James Mwape (20) and Philip Mubiana (21), from the northern town of Kapiri Mposhi, are understood to have been living together for some time, according to Zambia News and Information Services (Zanis).

Standwell Lungu, police chief in Zambia’s central province, was quoted as saying: “The two have been charged with the offence of sodomy or having sex against the order of nature contrary to the laws of Zambia.

“The relatives are the ones that reported the matter to the police.”

Police claimed that Mubiana played the role of “wife” in the relationship and had been seen dressed in women’s clothes. The case mirrors that of a gay couple in Malawi who in 2009 were jailed and ridiculed before receiving a presidential pardon.

On Tuesday, Zanis reported that the men had been rearrested and denied bail after “they were found in the act again” and would face further charges.

Lungu said medical tests proved that the men had sex. “We have revoked police bond and rearrested the two men for again engaging in the act which they were arrested on in the first place. They will remain in custody until they appear in court … We have given them more counts.”

The couple are due to appear in court on Wednesday.

Last month, activist Paul Kasonkomona was arrested minutes after a live TV appearance in which he said homosexuality should no longer be outlawed.

Paul Kasonkomona leaves the Lusaka magistrate court on April 11 2013, where he pleaded not guilty to charges of promoting homosexuality, after appearing live on television to argue for his cause. The 38-year-old activist was arrested in the capital on April 7, minutes after he appeared on a live TV show where he openly advocated for gay rights. (AFP)

In a recent interview with the Guardian, Zambian Vice-President Guy Scott defended the police action. “The problem with this guy going on television was that we had to do something because if we had done absolutely nothing we would have got a bollocking from all these evangelical churches plus damn idiots,” he said. “On the other hand, we didn’t want to give him a particularly hard ride.”

Scott made clear that gay rights is not a priority in Zambia. “I think you’ve got so much cleaning up to do of killings and defilements and this and that, it’s almost self indulgent to think, ‘Well, why don’t we sit here and talk about gay rights?'”

But Scott’s claim that Zambia has a policy of “live and let live” appears to have been challenged by the latest arrests. It was also contradicted by Chishimba Kambwili, the youth and sport minister, who recently told a radio programme: “We don’t want Zambia’s children to be taught any vice. We will not tolerate homosexuality. Those who want to promote homosexuality in Zambia are wasting their time. If anything, we are planning to stiffen laws against homosexuality.”

Homosexuality is illegal in 37 African countries. In Zambia 98% of the population disapprove of homosexual behaviour, according to a 2010 survey, and newspaper headlines such as “cage homos” are commonplace.

David Smith for the Guardian Africa Network.