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Efico Coffee's Journey through the South of Ethiopia

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Coffee's Journey through the South of Ethiopia
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COFFEE’S JOURNEY THROUGH THE SOUTH OF ETHIOPIA
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Page 1: Efico Coffee's Journey through the South of Ethiopia

COFFEE’S JOURNEY THROUGH THE SOUTH OF ETHIOPIA

Page 2: Efico Coffee's Journey through the South of Ethiopia

THROUGH THE SOUTH OF ETHIOPIACOFFEE’S JOURNEY

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Page 3: Efico Coffee's Journey through the South of Ethiopia

Our trip through the land of coffee heritageWe landed in Addis Ababa where we visited the governmental coffee organizations, the facilities of KURU Coffee Development PLC, Efico’s privileged partner in Ethiopia- and some cultural places and local markets. From Addis Abeba, we crossed the Great Rift Valley (known for its discoveries of early hominids such as Lucy, whose bones reside in the Ethiopian National Museum in Addis Ababa) to explore the famous Sidamo’s green hills and finally reached Yirgacheffe region. Driving in Ethiopia was quite an experience. Only a few percents of the roads are paved. There are not too many cars around. Pedestrians and cattle gathers around and requires continuous attention. Therefore, drivers use their horn non-stop!

Traditional Sidamo rural homes are built in cylindrical fashion with walls made of wattle and daub.

Our trip through the land of coffee heritage

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Ethiopia is situated in the Horn of Africa, in sub-Saharan Africa, between the Equator and the Tropic of Capricorn, bordered by Kenya, South Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea and Djibouti.

It covers a total area of 1,100,000 km2 which is twice the size of France, 26 times The Netherlands and 36 times Belgium.

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, is located 2,400 meters above sea level. Ethiopia’s landscapes are covered with beautiful earth colors. The country has several high mountain ranges that maintain tropical cloud forests which provide shade from the midday sun and preserve the moisture in the soil.

Arabica Coffee grows on altitudes between 1200m and 2300 m, with a volcanic and fertile clay soil, rich in minerals.

These are the ideal conditions for coffee growing.

Geographically

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The truly diverse population of Ethiopia comprises a number of different ethnic groups (Oromo, Amhara and Tigre, Sidam, Shankella, Somali, Afar, and Gurage), speaking a wide range of different languages. Ethiopia’s main language is Amharic; it is the second most-spoken Semitic language in the world, after Arabic, and the official working language of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. When travelling through Ethiopia it is better to be accompanied by a local translator, as few people speak English in rural areas. This country has a rich religious diversity as well, with representation from Muslim, Ethiopian Orthodox and animist groups, living together in harmony.

Diverse languages & religions

Demographic trendsWith over 91 million inhabitants, Ethiopia is the second dense populated nation on the African continent. The demographic explosion of these last years is a real challenge to the country.

Ethiopia maintained its freedom from colonial rule and it is the oldest independent country in Africa. Ethiopia is the cradle of humanity and the birthplace of Arabica coffee. Ethiopia's history is full of changes. Over the last four decades, Ethiopian people have lived under different forms of government. Since 1991, a federal governance system is established. Ethiopia has also been confronted with economic, social and environmental problems, including a war with Eritrea from 1998-2000.

All its historical conflicts has caused a lot of damage, including human loss, limited access to land, emotional trauma, and extreme hunger. At the international level, the country has also a strategic position, due to its stability.

Unique among African countries

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Ethiopia's potential for agriculture and coffeeEconomy is based on agriculture. Current agricultural activities represent a large part of the GDP, the employment, and the foreign exchange earnings.

Agriculture is predominantly in the hands of small farmers working on individual small holdings, also for household consumption. This way the sector remains fragmented and inefficient. This is a vivid indication that Ethiopia’s agriculture is characterized by a low level of mechanization and technology. It makes the agriculture receptive to technological adaptation and attractive to investment.

Coffee, a major cash crop, is of high quality and contributes for a large part to the total agricultural exports. So, it is a major source of foreign-currency earnings.

Ethiopia is Africa's largest Arabica Coffee and worldwide the sixth largest exporter. The International Coffee Organization’s (ICO) indicates that Ethiopia’s coffee production hits in 2010/2012 about 6,450,000 bags of 60 kg (387,000 tons), where the government expects or projects to exports 50 percent of the production.

The coffee sector has a direct or indirectly impact on the livelihoods for over 15 to 16 million people in this county.

The varieties are highly regionalized and controlled: Harar, Jimma, Limu, Sidamo, Yirgacheffe, ... having neither excessive pungency nor the acidity of Kenyan brands.

Coffee from Sidamo in the south has an unusual flavor and is very popular. Ethiopian Yirgacheffes are amazing and the coffees from this region will surprise you with their floral and tangerine notes.

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Page 5: Efico Coffee's Journey through the South of Ethiopia

Injera , a spongy unleavened bread made from teff grain, is the staple of every meal. All food is eaten with the hands, and pieces of injera are ripped into bite-sized pieces and used to dip and grab stews ( wat ) made of vegetables such as carrots and cabbage, spinach, potatoes, and lentils. The most common spice is berberey, which has a red pepper base.

Food in Daily Life

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The story of coffee has its beginnings in Ethiopia, the birthplace of Coffea Arabica, which still grows wild in the forest of the highlands. While nobody is exactly sure how coffee was originally discovered as a beverage, the only thing that seems certain is that it originated in Ethiopia, from where it traveled to Yemen about 600 years ago, and it began its journey around the world.

Among the many legends that have developed regarding the origin of coffee, one of the most popular is that of Kaldi, an Abyssinian goatherd. One day he observed his goats behaving in abnormally exuberant manners. He noticed they were eating the bright red cherries that grew on the green bushes nearby. Kaldi tried a few himself, and soon felt a novel sense of elevation. He filled his pockets with the cherries and brought them to Monks

in a monastery. He explained his discovery of their miraculous effect. Devils work! exclaimed the Monks, and hurled the cherries in the fire. Within minutes the monastery filled with the heavenly aroma of roasted beans, and the other monks gathered to investigate. The beans were raked from the fire and crushed to extinguish the embers. The Monks ordered the grains to be placed in the ewer and covered with hot water to preserve their goodness. That night the monks sat drinking the rich and fragrant brew, and from that day vowed they would drink it daily to keep them awake during their long, nocturnal devotions and prayers.

The legend of Coffee

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Traditional Coffee CeremonyCoffee holds a special place in Ethiopian culture that transcends the coffees from other origin countries. Many Ethiopians still drink coffee during ceremonial or ritual events. The coffee ceremony is part of the indigenous cultural traditions for already more than ten generations.

No visit to Ethiopia is complete without participating in a coffee ceremony. It is Ethiopia ‘s traditional form of hospitality. Invariably conducted by a beautiful young girl in traditional Ethiopian costume, the ceremonial apparatus is arranged upon a bed of long grasses. The green beans are roasted in a flat metal pan over a charcoal brazier, the rich aroma of coffee mingling with the heady smell of incense that is always burned during the ceremony. The beans are then pounded with a tubular or in a wooden mortar. And the ground coffee then brewed in a black pot with a narrow spout.

Traditional accompaniments are popcorn, also roasted on the fire, and the coffee is sweetened with sugar to be drunk from small handless cups. During our trip we were invited to participate in several coffee ceremonies, and once we were surprised by a salty tasting coffee!

We experienced the local coffee market and all the steps of its supply chain. We had the opportunity to meet Sidama Union & Fero Cooperative representatives, to discuss future partnerships. We explored the Sidamo & Yirgacheffe regions, and we were very pleased to discover these green regions. When we visited the Efico Foundation & Peeze Foundation sustainable project, we enjoyed discussing with the producers, cooperative members, and discovered all these smiling and welcoming children's faces.

Our coffee experience

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For many centuries, Ethiopians have protected, preserved, harvested and consumed coffee in a very unique way. These pictures will show you how they proceed.

Steps of the Ethiopian Green Coffee Supply ChainFor many centuries, Ethiopians have protected, preserved, harvested and consumed coffee in a very unique way. These pictures will show you how they proceed.

Steps of the Ethiopian Green Coffee Supply Chain

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Farming, crop & harvesting In Ethiopia Coffee still grows's in the wild mountain forests. Ethiopian farmers cultivate coffee in four different systems: forest coffee, semi-forest coffee, garden coffee and plantation coffee. More than 90% of the coffee in Ethiopia is produced on small plots of land. Coffee farmers pick the red coffee cherries from October to February. Once the cherries are picked, they are transported to the Local Market Place. Getting the cherries as fast as possible to those units has a determining effect on the coffee quality. In a plantation, we tried picking cherries, 25 are needed for one cup of coffee. The average productivity varies between 700 & 900 kg/hectare.

They are designed for coffee transactions between farmers and owners of washing stations. Cooperative washing stations are also represented on the market place, but only members of the coop can bring in their cherries and are paid.

Specific Local Market Places

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The Washing Station, there are two methods of processing coffee: the wet and the dry one. Commercially the wet method is preferred, but the small producer who picks the cherries wild may save time by sun-drying the beans after picking, and they sell them directly to customers on the local market. In the washing station, cherries are first sorted, collected and dropped off in a large collecting bin for de-pulping. For the de-pulping the husk of the cherry is removed mechanically. The space between the discs is important not to damage the coffee beans.

The coffee beans are put into separate fermenting bins, filled with water, in function of their quality, to eliminate the rest of the pulp, and to remove the sugar. They are turned on a regular basis to create uniformity, while fermenting between 30 and 48 hours. Water reduces the coffee’s bitterness, its contraction increases the acidity and provides a finer flavour.

Washing: the coffee is washed; the last parts of mucilage are removed.

Washing Station Fermentation

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the beans are spread on coffee drying beds for a period of 15 days on average, depending on climate conditions, regularly turned over, covered at midday and at night or when it rains. The humidity percentage of the beans decreases from 55% to max. 12.5%. This coffee is called «parchment coffee».

Drying

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the water used during this process needs to be cleaned and is mostly stored in a lake before evaporation and infiltration. The cherry pulp is composted to be used as fertiliser.

cooperatives generally keep the parchment coffee stored in a warehouse in the washing station until it is dry enough for export. Private operators store their stock in the ECX regional warehouses (see next step).

Waste management

Storage & packaging

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In Ethiopia, the government created the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX). It is a national commodity exchange market established in April 2008, that brings farmers in contact with the market. ECX trades coffee with the responsibility of managing the pricing and flow of coffee exports. ECX is established as a spot-trading platform (a form of trading that involves buying

or selling of a commodity on the spot date and immediate delivery of physical commodities.Samples are provided to the ECX for cupping in the laboratory and to determine the quality. At this stage the coffee quality is fixed and the coffee can be sold at the auction, or directly if it comes from a cooperative.

Coffee sector organization

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Page 13: Efico Coffee's Journey through the South of Ethiopia

De-parchment: the hull that is called parchment is mechanically removed and the beans can also be polished.

Cleaning, Sorting and calibrating: the debarked beans are first mechanically sorted and sieved to remove the bad beans and the stones and are also screened. A last manual control is done before packing in jute bags of 60 Kg.

Laboratory Control: Cupping. Coffee making is a science comparable to winemaking. Controls are carried out at different levels; variety, sugar, content, fermentation, ... to achieve a target flavour profile. Coffee is analysed and undergoes quality tests in laboratories.

Export via Kuru

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The Coffee BoardThe Coffee Board is a second strategic governmental body, that controls the quality of all the exported green coffee. The government developed a coffee classification and grading system, allowing to certify export coffee qualities. Ethiopian coffee export certification began after the establishment of the National Coffee Board of Ethiopia (NCBE) in 1957. The NCBE aims to control coffee export, facilitate coordination between producers, traders, and exporters, and improve the quality of Ethiopian coffee. The Coffee Board: checks if samples fit with documentation and exporters requirements, provides export certifications & documents.

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Transport to Djiboutistill a long way, a 48h truck transport from Addis is required, before arriving at the port of Djibouti. All necessary documentation should be collected to be able to export the coffee.

EFICO partners with its own facility in Djibouti Free-zone to store the coffee in the best possible conditions and to maintain the coffee quality. Holton Overseas is the name of this new company, which is following national and international requirements.

After custom clearing, coffee can be finally shipped from the port of Djibouti to a European port.

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As you can discover, several steps have to be completed to bring the high qualitative coffee harvested in the Southern regions of Ethiopia to Europe. Many precautions have to be made to duly control all the steps in the coffee supply chain and avoid qualitydeterioration during harvesting, processing, hulling, transporting an shipping the coffee.

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Building Sustainable

Coffee Drying Beds in Fero

Coffee Farmers Cooperative

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This cooperative was established in 1975 in the Sidamo region. The cooperative owns 3 washing Stations and has ± 3.674 members. This makes it one of the largest coffee cooperatives of the Sidama Union. A farmer cultivates about ½ to 1 hectare. Fero cooperative is certified: Organic, Fair Trade and soon Rainforest. Last crop, Fero produced ± 25 TEU's. The smallholder coffee producers of Fero have helped to conserve the local coffee varieties. They use organic farming techniques to grow coffee in the native forests. This environmentally sustainable coffee is also of very high quality. By producing certified coffees, Ethiopia farmers have found a way to produce high quality coffee, improving their livelihoods and conserving the environment.

The project idea was developed based on the need of the Fero cooperative to improve coffee drying beds, and in close partnership with the farmers of the Fero cooperative, the Foundation of an Efico’s customer and the Efico Foundation. Several meetings with the members of the cooperative have shown that they are aiming to enhance the quality of their coffee by improved drying beds.

In August, Efico and its partner visited the washing station to finalise and evaluate the new constructions. On this picture, the structure of the current drying beds in Ethiopia. Traditional coffee drying beds in Fero are made of wood and must be rebuilt frequently due to weather conditions. At night or during a rainy period, the drying beds have to be covered to prevent the coffee from humidification. The current wooden drying beds in Fero have a short ‘life expectancy’ which results in high wood consumption and time-consuming reconstruction and covering of the beds at night. The coffee quality is also impacted as the wire mesh where the coffee beans are spread on gets loose over time. As a result the beans tend to slide into the middle of the wire mesh and they are so not homogenously dried.

Field preparation visits to the Fero Cooperative in August and December 2012

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2 wooden drying bed with roof 1 wooden drying bed without roof 1 bamboo drying bed without roof.Our visit gives all parties the opportunity to comment on the Pilot-project and make suggestions to improve the construction.

All partners agreed that a period of use of the beds is necessary to make a qualitative assessment. The harvesting period just started. After this crop all remarks will be collected and analysed, and an in depth evaluation will be performed in partnership with all stakeholders.

The drying beds

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Fero would like to build more sustainable drying beds while enhancing quality conditions, based on local know-how and experiences from other coffee-producing countries. Cross-information of techniques used elsewhere suggest to test 3 different materials and, 2 constructions versions: with & without roof. The roof is a protection against rain, humidity and direct sunlight.

The core objective of the project is to implement qualitative, environment-friendly and cost-effective coffee drying beds . By researching the best solution, Fero promotes better processing techniques to increase the coffee quality. By improving drying conditions of green coffee this new infrastructure will enhance the quality. And more, deforestation is avoided.

Pilot-Project

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Taste the excellence

of the Ethiopian

Coffee, then you

understand the passion

for our selected

beans.

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December 2012


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