Tate Watkins looks at why Haiti, which grew half of the world’s coffee during colonial times, has struggled in recent years:
Washed beans that sell for high prices abroad account for less than 2 percent of coffee grown in Haiti. Unwashed beans make up 90 percent of Haitian production, most of which is consumed by the domestic market or slips across the border to the neighboring Dominican Republic on donkeys, duty-free.
Poor farmers have sporadic cash flows, and most prefer to sell as quickly as possible, with little regard to price or who happens to be buying. The farmers’ cooperatives that sell washed beans for export lack financing and pay only a portion of the price up front; members have to wait until the end of the season to receive the remainder, or ristourne. Local and Dominican traders can often pay immediately upon purchase and are happy to buy low-grade coffee or even raw cherries. The majority of Haitian farmers wind up selling low-value coffee at correspondingly low prices.
How Haiti compares to Rwanda, whose coffee exports have boomed over the past few decades:
Haiti and Rwanda produce about the same volume of beans each year. But Rwanda has exported nearly 20 percent of its coffee in recent years as washed beans for gourmet markets, up from just 1 percent in 2002. Haiti sells 90 percent of it’s production as cheap, dry-processed beans that never leave the island of Hispaniola. The upshot is that in 2010, Rwanda made $55 million from coffee exports. Haiti made $1.5 million.
Update from a reader:
I’m glad to see the topic of Haitian coffee come up. it does seem like a real possibility to start pulling Haiti back up. I would like to give a quick plug for the Singing Rooster non-profit that has been providing loans and training to co-ops in Haiti. The coffee’s fantastic and the put the money back into Haiti.
The Dish 