Too Much Coffee

When I topped up my Haraar stock a month ago, with some of the last of HB's 2008 harvest, I didn't realise what a crisis the Ethiopians are facing.

I don't know if anyone saw last weeks BBC2 documentary about the Rift Valley, it may still be available online. Things are pretty unstable there, with drought, poverty, disease and tribal warfare.

Small wonder lots of coffee plantations are being grubbed out and replaced with Chat an amphetamine-like stimulant. It's appearance looks a bit like bay leaves and it's highly addictive when chewed.

One can't help but sympathise with the farmers, when you look at the price comparisons, between Coffee and Chat. Ironically, last year was one of the best Haraars I've had for many a moon. Ethiopia is considered the birthplace of coffee, but this fact may well be lost on the poor farm workers in Vietnam, who will happily fill the gaps with low-grown Robusta. It's one of those problems that seems unique to coffee and may be insoluble.

Bertie

Some more info about Qat (and its effects in Yemen):

The Case of Qat in Yemen
Yemen, Coffee and Qat
Qat: The plague of Yemen

Not good

deeply concerned.
big four diggin the soil under our coffeetree untill theress only handfull left. then a cup of mokha is worth kingdoms and horses..
dmmmn, people pay the farmer what they deserve! (like we here are paying) before the home of coffee is lost to greed and power and money...andandand.ng

sorryrammingg..

hmm - khat is not good for you, at all, also. Devil's herb, compared to coffee.

our public need to deal with this. Jim (Hoffmann) has an excellent post on this - that the consumer is largely to blame, for not bringing their consumer power to bear on the industry - so I won't expand on it...