How the Coffee Prices may be greatly assisting the Kenyan Coffee Industry find New Farm land.
Over the Mara River
From the Print Issue
The Kenyan coffee industry has over the last decade lost nearly 10% of farm land to real estate and infrastructure projects.
Over 5,376 acres of farm list in Kiambu was lost in one year alone for major housing projects like Tatu City (3000 acres), Thika Greens(1,600 acres) and Four Ways (776 acres); there has been huge cause for concern as further smaller real-estate projects are also expected to come up.
Drought …

Reviewing the New EAFCA Taste of Harvest Strategy and what it means for the “Way Above Average” or “Excellent” Coffee
Sokoni
From the Print Issue
The Scene: An Upcountry Secondary School in Uganda
The Speaker: A New Headmaster with a peculiar love for green suits and a knack for telling stories
The Audience: A nervous wreck of young boys and girls with Final Exams due in three weeks.
Subject: The Law of Averages
His Speech (Paraphrased):
“In life, you can choose to excel or you can choose to settle (be average). Average attendance and reading in class …

The Increasing Interest by Japanese Coffee Stakeholders in African Fine Coffees
Sokoni
From the Print Issue
As the Spartans evoke feelings of a great Ancient Greek era, the Samurai awake images of Japanese swords men wielding their famous curved Katana blades in service to the Emperor with a quick and deadly accuracy.
One of the Greatest Japanese image exports to the world, the Samurai are still seen as one of the world’s most elite military forces whose teachings can still be found today in both everyday life and in modern martial arts such …

Taking the plunge…
A look into the forward vertical integration of the Malawi coffee industry, and its’ current domestic consumption.
The Heart Warming Cup from the Warm Heart of Africa
The Malawian coffee industry displays a uniqueness in a number of ways over other African coffee producing nations, both in terms of the make up of coffee producers and also in terms of the prevalent (or lack of ) coffee-drinking culture.
Primarily, for example, the country’s production is split into two types of coffee production, which co-incidentally are also geographically split.  In the north …

The Proposed Creation of Ugandan Centers of Excellence
Beans from the Pearl
As the famous children’s book series and film franchises of “Harry Porter” comes to an end, readers of the book will always remember the books lead character’s (Harry Porter’s) first day at the Hogwarts School and his encounter with the magical and enchanting “Sorting Hat”.
“The Sorting Hat”, an all knowing & wise cap, would be placed on new year one students heads and just by looking at their qualities, character and weaknesses would decide which of the four houses they …

Raising a Case for Increased Research Support in Uganda
As young couples, most people realize that love plays a huge part in who they chose to be their marriage partners. However, there is one factor that pays an even larger role, convenience.
Couples who have mutual interests usually tend to gravitate towards a much richer and interesting relationship. Both may feel the need for a huge number of children, be interested in traveling or one may be great at cooking; a quality that often persuades men to get down on one knee. …

Out of Africa
The coffee markets and most particularly the volatile New York market, continue to be dominated by the funds and speculative investment, rather than the fundamentals of supply and demand.   Albeit that there are some commodity investment houses who are having an influence, in their taking physical coffee positions and thus in terms of their hoarding, causing some degree of tightening supply.   This has been a particularly conspicuous issue, with the considerable quantities of Vietnam Robusta coffees that have been sidelined temporarily, from the short term physical coffee market.
In terms …

Travis Scott, the current South African Barista Champion, shares some of the highlights from his fun and insightful trip to the WBC held in Colombia.
So Travis Tell us all about your trip?
It was fantastic that the WBC was held in Columbia, a beautiful coffee producing country.  We were met at the airport by our Barrister Buddy (Nicholas) who was studying to be a chef, and was assigned to us because he could speak English which was great because no one in Bogotá could speak English. The first few days we …

Beans from the Pearl
From time in memorial, Uganda has used the Northern corridor for the bulk of its exports. It is estimated that this route takes over 90% of the trade while only less than 1% of the volume goes through the Central Corridor of Dar es Salaam Port. A significant decline in the volume of exports from Uganda through this route was attributed to the liberalization of coffee transportation which was formerly exclusively transported by Uganda Railways on the Government of Uganda directive. Matters were made worse when three …

Beans from the Pearl
On the 10th of May 2011, International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) together with USAID LEAD (Livelihoods and Enterprises for Agricultural Development) Project made a presentation to local coffee stakeholders on the recent developments from their project of intercropping coffee and bananas to help improve income, food security, and system resilience in Uganda.
From 2006 to 2008, IITA had been involved in a first assessment of the benefits of fertilizer use and banana intercropping in coffee fields in two agro-ecological zones in Uganda (South and East). In collaboration …