120. Catching Up with Dehab Mesfin Bitewlign

This year on Dehab Mesfin Bitewlign's farm in Ethiopia's Keffa zone of the South West People's

Dehab with the mother-tree of Arabica

Region, there's a new project underway to increate productivity with regenerative agriculture. Preserving the rainforest that surrounds her farm was one of the key factors that attracted Bitewlign away from the "safe" world of business accounting, and into the risky world of coffee farming. In 2014-2015 she began 100% management of the 330 hectare farm, of which she owns 27% of the land, her husband owning the rest.

In April 2025 Ruth Ann had a long call with Dehab. Initially the topic of the call was about Dehab's banks because we had issues with banks in 2024. But as the call went on, I learned more about why Dehab is using the bank she's using. It's a story that could be the story of many coffee farmers. I'll recount the key points as well as I can.

Productivity is the Key: When Dehab has hired advisors to evaluate her farm, they say farm management could be improved, but first she must increase productivity. They say her productivity of 750 kg cherry / ha is very low, (the equivalent of ~ 120 kg green /ha.) Productivity levels of 500 - 1000 kg cherry / ha are common for traditional, low input methods, but Dehab isn't thinking about average statistics. She says, "I can sell 1 - 2 containers per year. This is not enough to cover costs. Remember I told you how the workers come to my office and say I must increase salaries 25% or they'll go elsewhere?" That's the direct pressure Dehab feels to increase productivity.

But how? The experts who give her advice usually recommend buying artificial fertilizers. But this isn't the way Dehab wants to go. She would like to continue farming without adding chemicals to the soil. She's hired an agronomy expert who is going to help her develop a natural composting program. (I love this, as it sounds a lot like the Soil Food Web program we facilitated in Rwanda back in 2018 with huge support from Blueprint Coffee Roasters.) Dehab's expert has experience with worms (vermiculture) and bio-char. These two practices are well-proven to improve soil health for coffee when managed well. The expert seems eager to work with Dehab and show how these techniques will boost tree productivity, but he warns that it will take time. Probably 2 - 3 years are needed for the soils to improve and significant increases in kilograms per hectare to appear.

Dehab (in white cap) at her farm's drying tables.

Dehab's Dedication: Dehab definitely has the passion for sustaining a long-term effort like this. When Ruth Ann visited her farm in 2023, Dehab seemed to glow with excitement as she toured our group to see the forest and her farm. She is a genuine fan and protector of the UNESCO Biosphere (protected forest) that surrounds her land. She took us to an area of the farm that she intentionally leaves alone for the birds and trees to grow "wild". She's preserving habitat for plants and animals.

The Bank's Role in the Equation: Dehab was sold-out of her coffee in 2024 and again in 2025. Finding buyers doesn't seem to be the problem, although she says in today's high-priced market, it can be a challenge. She must continue to show strong sales to the bank she's worked with the longest, so that they will extend a loan that can finance her 2 - 3 year sustainability project on her farm. Dehab thanks each of the roasters who support her, and therefore the land and the rainforest in Kaffa, Ethiopia. 

119. Dukundekawa's Early Childhood Development Center (ECD) Opens!

Ruth and Alice were excited to visit the new Early Childhood Development Center on the last morning of their 3 day visit to the rural, mountain village of Ruli. A year ago they had seen the building just beginning to go up. In March they heard reports that it had opened. Now they were going to see the kids and the program up front and personal! Coincidentally, the day of the tour, June 26, was the second-to-last day of the program year. On June 27 the pre-school was planning a big "graduation" celebration for all the children and their families.

Here are just a few photos from our delightful tour!

Head teacher: Petronille Mukanjishi

Assistant teachers: Verena, Olive

Students: 50 students at the school the day we visited. All of the kids are children of workers at the Dukundekawa cooperative. They play and learn at the ECD while their parents are at work.

The youngest is 1 year 9 months old. The oldest is 3 years old. 

Head Mistress Petronille has carefully planted and tended a garden of vegetables outside the school yard. The harvest goes into the kids' meals at the school every day!

118. Tariffs are the new regressive Tax : Welcome to the 1860s

My Take on Tariffs

Let's review a definition of the word "tariff" since this word has been used mostly only in "History of Economics" courses in the past century.

TARIFF: Tariffs are taxes imposed by one country on goods imported from another country. Tariffs imposed by the US are trade barriers that raise prices, reduce available quantities of goods and services for US businesses and consumers, and create an economic burden on foreign exporters.

[Source: https://taxfoundation.org/taxedu/glossary/tariffs/]

Taxes can either be progressive or regressive. Progressive taxes are a heavier burden on the rich than they are on the poor, and thus help to reduce the income gap in a country. A regressive tax is a heavier burden on the poor and widens the income gap between rich and poor. Tariffs are a regressive tax. It will be harder for a person with a low income to pay the artificially increased prices that tariffs bring. 

The table below shows that while tariffs reduce income for all Americans, lower and middle-class Americans experience a larger after-tax income drop than upper-class households.

[Source: https://taxfoundation.org/taxedu/glossary/tariffs/]

Here at Artisan, when tariffs were implemented on April 5, 2025, we asked AI to help us research the history of US tariffs on imported green coffee. We learned that the last time the US charged duties on coffee was during the Civil War in the 1860s. 

Table source: Gemini AI report on the topic "History of US Tariffs on Coffee."

The absurdity of using tariffs as a tool in modern trade policy is, of course, in-line with all the other economics-of-chaos that the current administration in Washington DC has shown as it's trademark. There is no fact-based reason to use tariffs for anything and even less logic to use them on coffee, but none of that makes a difference. Tariffs are here.

Along with high prices from the C Market reaching $4.00 and above, and kind of staying there (the C is at $3.75 as of this writing), all roasters are being forced to raise prices. Retail markets are slowly adjusting. Consumers will absorb some of it, but not all of it. Some consumers will downgrade the quality of coffee they buy. Others will switch to low-cost soft drinks and other sources of caffeine.

We would urge roasters to consider a special message to consumers when they decide to raise prices because of the tariffs. In our humble opinion, raising prices because of the tariffs deserves an educational message when delivered to consumers. A message like, 

"Dear Consumer: This increase is to pay the TAX that comes with Uncle Sam's tariffs. Don't like paying more taxes? Tell Uncle Sam."

The reason tariff increases are different than C-market increases is that consumers are voters. When a price increase is because of the C market, there's nothing a consumer can do about it. When a price increase is because of taxes, there is something consumers can do about it. In fact, according to the National Coffee Data Trends report, about 66% of Americans will be paying more for their coffee this year. That's a lot of voters.

117. Highest cherry prices ever in Rwanda's 2025 season

 

In Rwanda's various coffee-growing districts, some areas have finished peak season, and the cherry "flow" into the washing stations is tapering off. In the others, they're at the peak now and in still others, usually in the North, they are still ramping up day by day. One thing seems clear across all districts - coffee productivity is up! "Last week it was 8 tonnes collected today. Yesterday we collected 11 tonnes! More than we've ever collected in one day," exclaimed one coffee washing station manager.

Farmgate cherry prices are also up. I believe this is more than a coincidence. Rwanda may finally be proving it to itself that its coffee farmers have been right all along: they've been saying they know how to grow coffee, but the cherry price was not an incentive to invest in coffee. Last year's cherry price of 480 Rwf/kg cherry was the highest the country had ever seen, and now this year is a 20% increase over that, at 600 Rwf/kg cherry.

Table 1: Government of Rwanda Farmgate Cherry Price: 2015 - 2025 

Source: Artisan records, historical currency exchange rates and 6.875 for the cherry-to-green conversion ratio.

Increasing and high cherry prices year over year are now starting to show the economic pull towards investing time and money in coffee trees. "Now we are working for our trees," is the way one Rwandan farmer puts it when he tells me about his 1000 trees that are productive today and the 6000 trees he expects to be productive next year. He planted the seedlings 2 years ago. A coffee tree takes 3 years to mature enough to produce its first crop.

When I ask Rwandan coffee stakeholders why productivity is high this year, they mention a few factors:

1. Zoning policy has been removed. From 2017 - 2023, the Rwandan government experimented with a policy called "Zoning" which limited the choices of the farmer in terms of where and to whom they could sell their cherry. There was centralist thinking at heart, supposing that cooperatives and private exporters would be more incentivized to invest fertilizer and labor for best practices in coffee, if they were "guaranteed" the farmers would return the favor and deliver their cherry from now very productive trees to "the hand that fed them." It was a hard lesson in the power of markets. It did not increase productivity. Producers were not motivated by someone telling them to whom and where they could and could not sell their crop. 

Producers are motivated now, where it is legal for buyers to come into any area at any time and offer the highest price they can to farmers with cherry. 

2. Good climate conditions. In contrast to the past year, with too much rain, and the year before that with rain at the wrong times, this year most coffee growing areas in Rwanda seem to have gotten good amounts of rainfall and sun at close to the normal times.

3. New Chemical Fertilizer Distribution System. Since about 2023, a non-profit in Rwanda called "One Acre Fund" or "Tubura" is its Kinyarwanda name, has been working closely with the Government of Rwanda to improve distribution of chemical fertilizers to coffee farmers. Tubura has worked for decades with Rwanda's smallholder farmers of maize, rice and beans, with chemical fertilizers being a key catalyst for transforming subsistence farmers into thriving families with enough income to send kids to school. In 2023, they were allowed to begin rolling out a program designed to work in a similar way with coffee farmers. The program is a combination of soil analysis, farmer education, micro-lending for fertilizers and precision distribution of fertilizers purchased by the central government. Smallholders in the cooperatives from which Artisan buys are among the beneficiaries of this One Acre Fund Program.

The above are the backdrop to what for me are the signs that Rwanda's coffee sector has turned the corner into understanding what economists have been encouraging for decades: farmers can improve their livelihoods with coffee, but there must be sufficient incentives and available inputs. Today we see the signs that it's happening:

A. Farmers are paying cash for fertilizer. In 2015 - 2016 I was in Rwanda doing research. Sometimes we would be in meetings with coffee industry stakeholders and as economists, we tried to explain that farmers are not incentivized by the low farmgate price to invest in their coffee trees. We explained that if they were, they would be willing to buy fertilizer themselves. Stakeholders laughed at the idea. Farmers had "always" waited for the government to distribute fertilizer "for free." It wasn't for free. The farmers paid for it with an export tax. But it was a hidden fee and it was not cash they voluntarily took out of their pocket. Many in those days believed coffee farmers didn't know enough about fertilizer to decide to buy it and apply it without government assistance. But this year, I've talked to a farmer who tells me for the first time, he paid his own cash to buy fertilizer for his coffee trees. He knew what the government distributed would be insufficient or too late to be useful. I suspect there are many like him.

B. Farmers raising seedlings and other farmers paying cash for them. In the past, if seedlings of coffee trees were raised at all, it was by the government institution, the Rwanda Agricultural Board, RAB. Then, in 2017 - 2019, several programs incentivized cooperatives and exporters to have coffee tree nurseries. Today, I'm hearing that individual farmers are taking it upon themselves to build, stock and care for coffee tree nurseries. They are entrepreneurs who are sure they'll be able to sell coffee seedlings to neighboring farmers who want to plant more coffee trees, since now coffee is gaining a reputation as a lucrative crop. More lucrative, even, than maize and beans.

I've heard reports that trees that typically produce only 3 kg in a season are producing 5 - 6 kg of cherry this year.

Another quote from my Rwanda farmer friend, "this year farmers are happy more than any other year. They keep working for their trees. Price keeps going high. They will be encouraged."

 

116. Dockworkers' Strike: Payback Time

 

Dockworkers on strike from Maine to Texas demand fairness. AP News.

Oct. 1, 2024: A strike by dockworkers at 36 ports from Maine to Texas, the first since 1977, began walking the picket lines early Tuesday morning, according to AP News. (click here)

From our perspective at Artisan Coffee Imports, the message is clear: this is payback time and the coffee industry should take note. It's a coincidence, but appropriate, that today is International Coffee Day, a day where the industry celebrates the extensive, often unseen collaboration among countless people across the globe, all working together to deliver that perfect cup each day.

Three years ago the shipping lines took advantage of a post-COVID landslide of shipping demand and raised prices to levels that were beyond gauging. (click here) Their profits tripled. They lined their pockets and those of their shareholders. They should not be at all surprised that the dockworkers who made those profits possible were watching while they worked extra-hours, with extra health-care consequences and zero and minimal pay increases or benefits. 

From AP News: Shipping companies made billions during the pandemic by charging high prices, he said. “Now we want them to pay back. They’re going to pay back,” Local ILA president Boise Butler said.

Apparently, executives in the big shipping lines and at the ports (who are the employers of the dockworkers) are aghast at the ILA labor union's demands. They've been unable to negotiate a contract and haven't even had formal negotiations since June. The ILA has made demands like:

• a 77% pay raise over the six-year life of the contract.
• a complete ban on automation.

These are just demands in the face of estimates like this one of the profits shipping lines have raked in: in 2021 alone, the maritime shipping industry doubled the profits made in the past two decades. (source) 

Making profits is not inherently a bad thing - but what you do with them is. Did the shipping lines work to ensure that dockworkers received compensation, better healthcare, better retirement benefits and did they invest in increased safety on the job? Did they think creatively about funding re-training programs for today's dockworkers so that they would be happy to allow automation?  If a worker can see themselves as the one hired to run the machines - on the docks and perhaps elsewhere, it's an easier change. We need leaders who can envision a transition with their profits - a transition that moves workers into new opportunities with jobs outside the shipping industry where they are begging for people who can manage, repair and maintain robots.  If you don't remember who is actually doing the work, they will remind you.

I hope the strike will not be long. I hope the executives will realize their distributions to shareholders needed to extend to the workforce and this is the time, since it wasn't done three years ago. 

More power to you, ILA. I hope the leaders of global, multi-national coffee roasting companies are taking notes about what happens when we forget on whose backs all those "reported earnings" are built -- or, in the case of coffee -- on whose backs those profits are grown.

"The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice"  

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

115. Analysis of Rwanda Cherry Price 2024 and the "credit vs cash" issue

Feb. 19, 2024

NAEB's 2024 farmgate price was announced last week at 480 rwf/kg cherry which seems high compared to the 410 rwf/kg cherry of last year. However, when the two are adjusted for the decrease in the value of the Rwandan franc vs the dollar they are practically equal. The strain of inflation is real in its own way, though, of course.

The real, undeniable upward price pressure for Rwanda this year will come from increased competition due to the removal of the zoning policy. This is a huge relief for me and for farmers. NAEB has finally ended its experiment with this unsustainable law which was jeapordizing Rwanda's long-term future as a supplier of top-quality specialty coffee. The zoning policy, simply put, forced farmers to sell to only one washing station in the name of traceability.  

Now all washing stations will have to compete for cherry, bringing market forces to the markets in which farmers sell their cherry, which is a good thing to the extent that markets work in this agricultural sector. For those that may not know, washing stations in Rwanda have three basic ownership structures. There is private and coooperative owned, cooperative owned meaning the farmers themsevles operate it and keep the profits. Among the privates, there are Rwandan private owners and multinational private owners.

In the short term, removing the zoning policy may seem to be a disadvantage for cooperatives versus their multinationals competitors with lots of cash reserves. However, this disadvantage existed before and during the zoning policy. As recent as the 2022 season, we saw site collectors being disloyal to their employer (a cooperative board), because the coop offered them credit while those owned by multinational corporations (MNCs) offered cash. The MNCs offered the same "price", but cash instead of an IOU to be paid in three months after the season ends. In other words, the zoning policy did not correct this market imperfection.

In the forseeable future, we can see solutions to the credit vs. cash issue, which seem more likely to happen if there is no zoning policy restricting farmer choice. For one, cooperatives might do a better job communicating (or "advertising") the advantages of cooperatives for farmers and the community vs. the 'cold cash' that an MNC buyer offers. Cooperatives are there year-round, in the community, offering services like school fee loans, help for the elderly, jobs for the young, women's groups for solidarity and training, and of course, the second-payment that cooperatives try to pay their members. That second payment comes because the coop is farmer-owned and operated. They can emphasize what a difference that is compared to what an owner who lives in Switzerland is doing with the profits on a coffee sale.

A second, clearly helpful solution would be for the government of Rwanda to advocate even more for appropriate agricultural financing for cooperative and Rwandan-owned post-harvest processing organizations. Access to pre-harvest capital is an imperfect market, or said differently, an uneven playing field. MNCs have access to low-cost capital with which to buy cherry and cooperatives have high interest costs (I've heard as high as 24% when the rest of the market was at 16%) and sometimes are denied any access at all. There are high risks, of course. There are good reasons for banks to charge high interest rates and refuse to lend. But there are also innovations in financing that should be accessed on behalf of cooperatives. For example, could financing for several cooperatives in one region be bundled and offered to a lender with average risk over a longer period than what might be offered to a single entity?

On the issue of traceability, we hope that the governmenet of Rwanda continues its good efforts to enhance traceability of Rwanda's specialty coffee. Instead of regulating farmers, it would seem more feasible from the government's perspective, to regulate operators of large transport trucks. Rwanda is a small country with a limited number of paved roads. Is it possible to post enough police checks in each coffee region during peak season to make sure no one is transporting tonnes of southwestern Rusizi cherry to Rwanda's less productive eastern province? I don't know. I hope the experts in NAEB are considering their options to be sure confidence is maintained in the traceability of Rwandan coffee.

114. Improving Access to Pesticides for Women in Rwanda

Understanding the Gap In Access to Pesticide

Research published by the Africa Great Lakes Coffee Support Program found that Rwandan female household heads are less likely than male household heads to receive pesticide for their coffee crop (Gerard, Clay, Lopez, Bowman, & Rukazambuga, 2018). Pesticide is important in controlling coffee pests such as the antestia bug, which is associated with the potato taste defect (PTD) —a defect that reduces the value of coffee from Africa’s Great Lakes Region (Bigirimana, Gerard, Mota-Sanchez, & Gut, 2018).

Many roasters fear potato taste defect (PTD) in Rwandan and Burundian coffee. It's a particularly difficult defect because it cannot be screened out before export. There is no tell-tale black mark on a bean, nor can you cup a sample and be 100% sure that the rest of the bag of beans are the same (good or bad). There might be only one bean with PTD in an an entire 132 lbs jute bag, and it can look perfect!

Since detection of PTD is impossible, the industry focuses instead on prevention. That's where pesticide and integrated pest management comes in. Female headed households are about 18% of Rwanda's coffee population. If these farmers are not getting access to pesticides, they are not part of the prevention solution.

In 2015-2017, the study mentioned above was completed by a research team from Michigan State University and shed some light on why this gender difference exists.

The researchers asked female household heads two questions: 

(1) why, if all farmers are supposed to receive pesticide, are female household heads less likely than male household heads to use it? 

(2) What approaches might improve female household heads’ pesticide access and use?

CLICK HERE to read the paper. 

The study finds the following reasons for the gap between females and males receiving and using pesticide.

Reason 1: Difficulty of spraying pesticide because of heavy sprayers—women in Rwanda generally hire laborers rather than doing their own spraying.

Reason 2: Challenges in accessing pesticide from distribution centers, including not being told when pesticide is available and being given insufficient amounts of pesticide.

Additional barriers to pesticide use: cost and difficulty of hiring laborers; concern that pesticide may be dangerous for women to spray.

The researchers then recommend ways to overcome these challenges:

(1) encourage coffee washing stations to spray female household heads’ farms for them (as is done by some cooperatives); 

(2) study barriers to equitable distribution at the local level.

The findings are themselves important as guidance to agronomists and extension services, but the research is also remarkable. This study is an example of how valuable gender disaggregated data can be. The original field survey in 2015 and 2017 collected the data showing a gap exists. Step two was for another research team in 2020 to ask "why?" They designed the study and implemented additional field research to understand and share the answers.