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.
Thoughts, Themes and Events from Artisan Coffee Group
Monday, June 30, 2025
119. Dukundekawa's Early Childhood Development Center (ECD) Opens!
Thursday, May 8, 2025
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.
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.
"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."
Friday, April 11, 2025
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
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."