Alternative growth scenarios for Ugandan coffee to 2020:

Coffee is the most important export crop in Uganda and an important source of income among smallholder farmers in large parts of the country. The Robusta type dominates coffee production and Ugandan Robusta is demanded by roasters as a component in certain blends due to its special taste qualities. However, a combination of events outside and within Uganda, especially the collapse of world coffee prices in the late 1990s, are eroding farmer incomes and export revenues and threaten the long-term viability of the industry. In this context, the paper first investigates the challenges faced by the Ugandan coffee industry, namely the decline in the world coffee market, changes in procurement strategies among coffee importers, the rapidly expanding market for high quality and specialty coffees, and the spread of the coffee wilt disease and other farm-level productivity constraints. This leads us to examine possible development strategies for Ugandan coffee production: area expansion, quality improvement, and productivity increase. Using IFPRI's Dynamic Research Evaluation for Management (DREAM) model, different scenarios for each of these strategies are evaluated to show their potential impacts on Ugandan export prices, export revenues, and producer benefits. The simulation results show that Uganda would benefit relatively more by enhancing farm productivity and improving coffee quality. The economic benefits of increasing production through area expansion, on the other hand, would be significantly eroded by the negative effects on export prices, especially if other countries followed suit and accelerated their own growth in coffee production. These analyses focus on the potential benefits of alternate changes in Ugandan coffee production, while devoting less attention to how and at what costs such changes may be effected. Finally, it is suggested that because the world coffee market is so important to the Ugandan economy, and being the third biggest Robusta producer in the world, Uganda has a high stake and important role to play in international coordination efforts to raise and stabilize world coffee prices.Coffee industry Uganda, Commodity markets, exports, production possibilities, Prices,

Airfreight, organic products and Africa

The organic sector is addressing climate change through a number of initiatives including label-ling, and in the case of one UK certifier in 2007, a proposed restriction on organic certification for products that are airfreighted to market. The International Trade Centre and the Danish Insti-tute for International Studies examined the economic impact in Africa of banning certification for airfreighted products. The study based on interviews with UK importers, retailers, African exporters and organic smallholders showed that a ban could have serious local economic impact in some of the poor-est rural communities in the world. A minimum of 21,500 livelihoods would be compromised. Women, youth and small producers would be hardest hit and several exporter-producers would simply go out of business while others would revert to conventional production. The producers have on average a carbon footprint 1/50th of the average EU citizen. The study also showed that in the vast majority of cases, freight by sea or road was simply not an alternative. Hence a ban would also hamper the development of the organic market in the UK as early counter seasonal produce would be removed from the shelves and exporters would hesitate to make future investments in organic production. Consumers would have no choice but to buy air freighted conventional products instead of organic ones. The certifier proposed that certification be conditional upon ethical or fair trade certification and upon planning for 'reducing any remaining dependence on air freight'. This decision was taken without any serious involvement of developing-country organic operators who would be the ones mostly affected by it. Follow up analysis showed that this action was discriminatory as it ignored other energy intensive areas of the supply chain (e.g. distribution to retailers in the end market) and that EU farmers receive fuel subsidies. There were moreover a number of unre-solved issues related to ethical or fair trade certification that would prevent many operators from pursuing this option. The example illustrates that the inclusion of climate change issues into organic standards needs very careful consideration in order not to produce effects that are socially unjust and/or envi-ronmentally harmful. It also shows the need for organic producers and exporters in developing countries to develop a much stronger voice in the end markets where organic standard setting takes place, including dialogue with private standard setters and the IFOAM EU group and lob-bying work in EU institutions. Finally, developing country operators need to continuously review and adapt their use of standards in addition to organic certification ('organic+') in response to changes in demand. Enhancing their capacities in these regards is the joint responsibility of the organic movements in the North and the South