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The cry of smallholder coffee growers
From Misuku Hills in Chitipa to Choma in Nkhata Bay and Mphompha in Rumphi, smallholder coffee growers have cried. Theirs is a loud cry. Nevertheless, this cry has been stifled for long by some external forces that it has not been heard far.
However, if you take some time and pay an attentive ear to their cry, you would not help it but feel pity. The farmers have been used, abused and then refused.
Hamilton Mhone, fondly called Bwana Dongo, is one of the farmers who has cried more than his colleagues and never tires.
"I will fight on until justice is done. I just want to get what I am worth," said the Nkhata Bay coffee grower.
The grey-haired man has been a coffee grower for 42 years and with over 10,000 trees of coffee, one would think of him as a big farmer. On the field yes, but monetary wise he remains a poor old man. This is despite the fact that the country's coffee is on high demand and fetching a high price on the international market.
"Coffee is a labour intensive crop but it has not benefited me," complains Mhone. "I can't really say I have prospered despite hearing that our coffee is fetching high prices and I sell many kilogrammes per year. But all I get is about K200,000 per year."
From high cost of farm inputs to low revenues, Mhone says coffee is benefiting those who do not toil on the ground.
"The cost of farm inputs such as fertiliser is high. For example, we buy a 50 kilogramme bag of fertiliser at K4,000," says Mhone, "but that aside, we believe we are being duped by people who sell our coffee."
Their coffee is currently being sold by the Mzuzu Smallholder Coffee Farmers Trust which took over from the Smallholder Coffee Authority.
According to Mhone, the same problems they faced when they were under a smallholder coffee authority when all the profit was going to government continue to haunt them despite having a Trust set up to ease such problems.
He said when the Trust was set up, its job was to prepare them how to manage their coffee properly.
"We employ the people at the Trust but instead they have turned out to be masters, and this is painful to us, it is not surprising that they have chosen not to tell us how they administer finances from our coffee. They are benefiting not us the farmers," charged Mhone.
The view is also shared by coffee farmers from Misuku. One of them Ben Mubisa from Chuba said their relationship with the Trust has been strained because of the same issues.
"They don't tell us at what price our coffee is selling. They just take our coffee to Mzuzu and say this is how much your coffee has fetched. When we ask them how much per kilogramme or whether this is the sixty percent they promised. They say nothing. They do not even produce papers," complained Mubisa.
The farmers say they are fed up with the Trust and want cooperatives to be put in place. This way they feel they would return control of their coffee and avoid similar problems they encountered with the authority before being dissolved into a trust. The farmers argued that they are ready to take over.
Commenting on the developments, the Trust's General Manager Harrison Kalua said the major problem has been the slow flow of information. He said the Trust has got a board which is a representation of the farmers.
"When we sell, export and sell the coffee, we present the details to the board because as management we are responsible to the board not to the farmers. It is the board that is supposed to tell the farmers the prices," explained Kalua.
He added that during their annual general meeting which all the farmers attend, management also appraises the farmers on how much coffee was sold, the prices and how much the farmers got. However, he said the board keeps some information on prices a secret to offset competition from other companies.
"We are not a public organisation and we are in competition, therefore we can't just go public with any information. By the way we are dealing with about 4,000 farmers, so do they want us to put the information in the newspapers. It's their board which says we should maintain secrecy but if given a go ahead, it's very easy. We can do it." countered Kalua.
Kalua agreed with the farmers that they are supposed to get a minimum of 60 percent on their coffee. He said the farmers are even getting more, in some cases up to 85 percent depending on the volumes
"We give them the 60 percent and the Trust maintains its 40 percent but at times they are getting more when they produce more," he said.
On the issue of cooperatives, Kalua said that is already in the process as it cannot just happen overnight, "it's not them who initiated the issues of cooperatives. It's us because we said the Trust has outlived."
He said in the next 12 months, the Trust will be preparing its five associations to become cooperatives to be governed by a credit union.
"But what I can tell you is that the farmers are not ready. These cooperatives will not last six months because they don't have capacity to market and export coffee but we will give them the plans. It's a process that is going in phases," he said.
So goes the story of the smallholder coffee growers whose coffee-branded Mzuzu Coffee-has gained international repute and is being brewed and taken far and wide across the globe. It is the growers' expectation that authorities hear their cry.
www.nationmalawi.com
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