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Africa, Journey to the Origin


 

Do you know that the origin of modern humans is Africa?
And, that is the birthplace of coffee as well?
In Laetoli, Tanzania, the oldest footprints of human ancestors, of at least 3.6 million years old, were found. They had long arms and foot, and the brain size was very similar to that of modern chimpanzees and gorillas, and the human-ape separation occured around this time. However, there is no exact answer why it occured yet.

So, what is human-beings?
This is a tough question for anthropologists to answer, as much as the one "What is life"? Perhaps we can find some answer in the origin place.

 

Mission 1: Visit the First Rainforest Alliance Certified Farm in Africa
 

We first visited Moshi region in Tanzania, which was located in the foot of Mt.Kilimanjaro, and one of the world leading coffee cultivation area. We have chosen the farm Machare/Uru, owned by Mr. and Mrs. Medoch.

The reason I have chosen here is that there is a completed version of sustainable coffee, which I recently have put effort into. There is their management policy expressed in the "Farm Rule" which is put up in the management house. (right figure)

 

 
Their management policy put up..
 
Our Overall Policy and Social Responcibility (quated from their online website)
 

*Environment
We take great effort in avoiding damage to the environment with our daily farm operations. Our environmental policy is to protect and restore protected areas as well as production areas. We are carefully evaluating our operations as not to harm our neighbouring communities and their environment. We are raising awareness in the villages as well as actively support our neighbours in environmental issues such as tree management, Soil Erosion Prevention and Integrated Pest Management.

*Conservation
It is our policy to protect the wildlife that is using the farm's conservation areas as a corridor or living room.
No hunting, no trapping of wildlife is allowed on the farm.

*Health
We are regularly conducting health education sessions for our workers, teaching topics such as general hygiene, water hygiene, HIV prevention and many more. It is our responsibility to provide healthy working conditions.

*Labour and workers welfare
The management is committed to good labour relations.
We are not hiring any person underthe age of 18.
We are promoting equality between men and women
and are condemning all forms of discrimination.
Labour is not being contracted by third parties.

Machare Estate Management (http://www.macharecoffee.com/live/english.html)

I could feel their much affection for their farm and the environment through the inspection and conversation with them. Great shade trees protectiong young coffee plants with their wide-spreaded branches and deep geen leaves, and birds and wild animals living in the natural conservation area in the foot of Mt.Kilinmanjaro. They said they got 99.75 points in the RA judgement, although the passing score was 80 out of 100. As a coffee man, I strongly felt sympathy for them proudly telling us about the result.

 
Shade trees and Mt.Kilimanjaro. They have sent us the beautiful photo as it was cloudy while we were there.

(from the left) Mr. Ralph, me, Mrs. Bente Luther, Mr. Takei from Kanematsu corp. (thankful for him supporting us again.)
Mission 2: Secrets of Kenya Coffee
 

Our next destination was Kenya, which was famous for the high-quality mild coffee in Africa.
You may think it is a tropical region right on the equator, but actually it's cooler than summer of Europe in the most part. Especially, Nairobi is comfortable to stay because it is located in 1600m high above the sea, and it's not humid despite its strong sunlight.

First we visited the Kenya Coffee Board for an inspection. It is the apex body for the coffee industry, established in 1934. I could find some coffee exporters, agricultural cooperatives, and even auction sites in the board.


(Left) The Kenya Coffee Board. Most buyers seemed try to secure Kenya coffee because of the poor crop in Columbia in the year, and the price had been rising.

(Right) Sampling & checking room. All the coffee samples can be gotten here before an auction. In spite of this great amount, it is only a week worth.

 
In this area, the regidential area has been spreading for workers in Nairobi and the cultivation area has been decresing in recent years. However, this is my first time to see such vast coffee farms spreading around an urban district. Also, the scenery was just similar to the one in Brazil. There is an endress sceney of coffee trees prepared in moderate hills. The biggest difference is that they introduce machinery harvesting in Brazil while they use hand-picking in Kenya.


Cerrado, Brazil (left) and Thika, Kenya (right).

 

Got off the car and take a look at some trees. We could see they were well taken care and the branches were all pruned. They looked a bit see through more than that of other countrys as they were trimed tightly.
They are aware that the harvest amount will get smaller, but they put emphasis on "air stream" by having some space between branches. They are negative about the shade-grown method since they doubt the shade trees may shut the air stream. Even if their view is opposed to the "common sense" today, they protect the traditionaly method which their ancestors have developed, fighting against harmful insects.

Perhaps, we should rather evaluate that they have produced such a wonderful coffee which has taken global attention with the terroir, despite the negativeness of excessive sun exposure.


(Left) The air stream contributes to pest control as well.

(Right) Although they are aware of the benefits of shade-grown, still deny practicing in the respect of air stream protection.

Mission 3: Ethiopia
 

Addis Ababa in morning rush hour. City people seem to enjoy proper benefit.
 

Addis Ababa has gradually developed and there are teenagers walking around the downtown with a cellphone. However, there are only colorless barren lands spreading after taking only one hour ride from the city. Most of the land has lost its potential after excessive cultivation and overgrazing, and it gets harder and harder to gather firewoods and water as time goes.

As a result, mountains lost water retention potential, and Ethiopia has become the country which has the lowest access to water. Although they live on their livestock, some scientists suggest that grazing has even worse influence on the environment than deforestation.

It needs 5-6 more hours ride to get to the cultivation area.
Even though we could see the scenery changing back into forest through the car window, Ethiopia has been suffering from population explosion as other African countrys have. We never know how the scenery will be changed in 10 years.
 

Beaurifully prepared trees. They are likely to apply for Rainforest Alliance certification in the near future.


High quality beans are sun-dried on a raised-floor called "African Bed".

Typical life stile with Ethiopian hut and fruit trees around.
 

After one more ride from the western city Jimma, there is a mountainous area where the government-led farms are spotted. The farms are managed systematically so as to meet foreign buyers' demand, since the government positively accepts them for acquisition of foreign currency. They have been practicing agroforestry, utilizing the rich environment, and the farm is always maintenanced tidy.

Although Yirgachefe coffee is now the object of envy in the world because of its outstanding character, Ethiopian conventional garden coffee used to be mainstream culture there. There would be always coffee planted around farmhouse. Coffee must have been irreplaceable for people here since the early stage of cultivation of thousands years.


They invited us to a coffee ceremony. They roasted and grained beans, boiled water with charcoal, and brewed coffee in a tiny cup. In a coffee ceremony, they regard it is the hospitality for the guests to start from roasting. Franlincense is burnt aside, and the guests enjoy the coffee with some popcorns or nuts.
 
Although there is a variety of myths about coffee origin here in Ethiopia, the most famous one should be "Kaldi".
 

Advertisement of Kaffa, showing it's the coffee origin place.
 

Kaldi, noticing that when his flock nibbled on the bright red berries of a certain bush they became more energetic (jumping goats), chewed on the fruit himself. His exhilaration prompted him to bring the berries to an Islamic holy man in a nearby monastery. But the holy man disapproved of their use and threw them into a fire, from which an enticing aroma billowed. The roasted beans were quickly raked from the embers, ground up, and dissolved in hot water. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaldi) As the liquid had stimulating effect, Muslim people started use it for worship.

In this country, those inessentials which sensitize a sense (as coffee or chat) are more popular than those which palsy it as alcohol. Although alcohol is already banned in Islam, Muslims still seem to demand stimulation.

 
Regardless of the religions, people desired a concentration in worship, and what they needed was not food or alcohol but stimulation medicine. It is no wonder that coffee and chat have widely spreaded after people started using them for worship.
 

At the end of the trip, our guide brought us to a house and showed an old thick tree with wide-spread branches. I couldn't recognize even it was a coffee tree though I've seen coffee trees thousand times. It has natually stayed there since before people settled there, with pretty flowers and bearing berrys. People have harvested the berrys and kept protecting the trees with using the latest organic method "mulching" without being tought.

However, I heard that more and more people have recently changed the crop from coffee to chat; chat costs \750/kg while coffee costs only \180/kg, and the former is way beneficial.

I wonder people here will be still living with coffee in harmony in the future. While we werre chewing chat in coffee shade, I saw the long trace since the myth and history of the exploitation by developed countries behind their face.

Africa, will there still be the shade of tradition as origin place in the future?
We need to know more about the situations of each coffee production country as much as possible. When the ancestors should come back to this origin place, the old trees would be the best signpost in continuously changing moments.

 
The old tree looks sacred.
It still keeps sprouting.
 
Mitsuhiro Yamamoto
HIRO COFFEE Representative Director
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