Catherine Bashiama runs her fingers along the branches of the coffee tree that she has raised from a seedling, searching anxiously for its first fruit buds since she planted it three years ago.
When she grasps the small cherries, Bashiama beams.
The farmer had never grown coffee in her village in western South Sudan, but now hopes a rare species will help pull her family from poverty.
Photo: AP
“I want to send my children to school so they can be the future generation,” said Bashiama, a mother of 12.
Discovered more than a century ago in South Sudan, excelsa coffee is exciting cash-strapped locals and drawing interest from the international community amid a global coffee crisis. As leading coffee-producing countries struggle to grow crops in drier, less reliable weather, prices have soared to the highest in decades and the industry is scrambling for solutions.
Experts say estimates from drought-stricken Brazil, the world’s top coffee grower, are that this year’s harvest could be down by about 12 percent.
“What history shows us is that sometimes the world doesn’t give you a choice and right now there are many coffee farmers suffering from climate change that are facing this predicament,” said Aaron Davis, head of coffee research at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in London.
Davis and his team have been researching excelsa for almost a decade and work with excelsa producers in several counties, notably Uganda.
Native to South Sudan and a handful of other African countries, excelsa is also farmed in India, Indonesia and Vietnam. The tree’s deep roots, thick leathery leaves and big trunk allow it to thrive in extreme conditions such as drought and heat where other coffees cannot. It is also resistant to many common coffee pests and diseases.
Yet it comprises less than 1 percent of the global market, well behind the arabica and robusta species that are the most consumed coffees in the world.
Experts say excelsa will have to be shown to be practical at a much larger scale to bridge the gap in the market caused by climate change. For now, it is mostly only available for purchase online.
Unlike Ethiopia or Uganda, oil-rich South Sudan has never been known as a coffee-producing nation. Its British colonizers grew robusta and arabica, but much of that stopped during decades of conflict that forced people from their homes and made it hard to farm. Coffee trees require regular care such as pruning and weeding, and take at least three years to yield fruit.
During a visit earlier this month to Nzara County in Western Equatoria state — regarded as the country’s breadbasket — residents told reporters about their parents and grandparents growing coffee, yet much of the younger generation had not done it themselves.
Many were familiar with excelsa, but did not realize how unique it was, or what it was called, referring to it as the big tree, typically taller than the arabica and robusta species that are usually pruned to be bush or hedge-like. The excelsa trees can reach 15m in height, but can also be pruned much shorter for ease of harvesting.
Coffee made from excelsa tastes sweet — unlike robusta — with notes of chocolate, dark fruits and hazelnut. It is more similar to arabica, but generally less bitter and may have less body.
“There’s so little known about this coffee, that we feel at the forefront to trying to unravel it and we’re learning every day,” said Ian Paterson, managing director of Equatoria Teak, a sustainable agro-forestry company that has been operating in the country for more than a decade.
The company has been doing trials on excelsa for years. Initial results are promising, with the trees able to withstand heat much better than other species, the company said.
It is also working with communities to revive the coffee industry and scale up production.
Three years ago it gave seedlings and training to about 1,500 farmers, including Bashiama, to help them grow the coffee. The farmers can sell back to the company for processing and export.
Many of the trees started producing for the first time this year and Paterson said he hopes to export the first batch of about 7 tonnes to specialty shops in Europe.
By 2027, the coffee could inject about US$2 million into the economy, with big buyers such as Nespresso expressing interest, he said.
However, production needs to triple for it to be worthwhile for large buyers to invest, he said.
That could be challenging in South Sudan, where security concerns and a lack of infrastructure make it hard to get the coffee out.
One truck of about 30 tonnes of coffee has to travel about 3,000km to reach the port in Kenya to be shipped. The cost for the first leg of that trip, through Uganda, is more than US$7,500, which is up to five times the cost in neighboring countries.
It is also hard to attract investors. Despite a peace deal in 2018 that ended a five-year civil war, pockets of fighting persist. Tensions in Western Equatoria are especially high after the president last month removed the governor, sparking anger among the governor’s supporters.
The government says companies can operate safely, but warned them to focus on business.
“If I’m a businessman, dealing with my business, let me not mix with politics. Once you start mixing your business with politics, definitely you will end up in chaos,” said Alison Barnaba, the state’s minister of agriculture.
Growing the coffee is not always easy, either. Growers have to contend with fires that spread quickly in the dry season. Hunters use fires to scare and kill animals, and residents use it to clear land for cultivation, but they can get out of control and there are few measures in place to hold people accountable, residents say.
Still, for locals, the coffee represents a chance at a better future.
Bashiama said she started planting coffee after her husband was injured, making him unable to help cultivate enough of the corn and ground nuts that the family had lived on.
Since his accident she has not been able to send her children to school or buy enough food, she said.
Excelsa is an opportunity for the community to become more financially independent, community leaders say.
For coffee to thrive in South Sudan, locals say there needs to be a long-term mentality and that requires stability.
Elia Box lost half of his coffee crop to fire early last month. He plans to replace it, but was dispirited at the work it will require, and the lack of law and order to hold people accountable.
“People aren’t thinking long-term like coffee crops, during war,” he said. “Coffee needs peace.”
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