OCIR-CAFE was created
in 1978 as an autonomous public institution in order
to supervise the coffee sector, which is today mostly
liberalized. But in order to better understand your
mission, can you briefly describe the main tasks
of your institution and especially the role it played
in the process of rehabilitation of sector after
the war?
OCIR-Café was created in 1978 following the
disappearance of the "Office des Cultures Industrielles
du Rwanda" encompassing the Tea and coffee
sector. Ocir-Thé and Ocir-Café are
now two independent institutions. So, since 1978,
Ocir-Café has been in charge of promoting
the sector on local and international markets, looking
after the coffee producers, controlling quality
of exported coffee. Before '94, the sector exported
30% of the national production, especially towards
Western Europe. After '94, we gave up our trading
activities alongside the liberalization of the sector.
The private sector took over the trade of coffee.
Ocir-café is today completely restructured
and has a role of supervisor. We are also highly
committed to coordinating the dialogue between all
parties involved in the coffee sector and determining
new development policies. In this framework, the
private sector (producers, transporters, exporters,
banks) is even represented in our board of Directors.
Have you been able to measure the impact of the
liberalization policy implemented after 1994?
As far as OCIR-Café is concerned, the transfer
of trading activities to the private sector affected
our financial capacity. But the difficulties that
we face are not really coming from the liberalization
process but rather from structural problems at the
international level. Of course we cannot ignore
the negative effects of the war on the production
levels. Before 1994, the average national production
of coffee was around 35,000 tons per year and after
1994 until now, we have been around 19,000 tons.
The quality got also affected: we went down from
a high standard rating (75%) to a low price commodity
coffee. All this, combined with the international
drop in prices has contributed to level down the
productivity as more producers, discouraged by the
fall in their revenues, tend to work less efficiently,
which makes them enter a vicious circle of productivity
and quality reduction.
Another factor responsible for the lower productivity
is the plants' oldness and the reduced soil fertility.
It is now up to the government to undertake the
necessary measures to boost the sector. They have
already adopted a new policy, a 10-year development
plan with a new vision for the sector. New strategies
have been implemented to increase production and
quality. |
We have decided to promote
and reinforce producers' associations. Now, you
can find an association of producers in almost every
district of the country. Besides, we note that the
private sector is now starting to invest in the
improvement of the coffee quality. Trading companies
such as SICAF that used to buy and export only is
now investing upstream at the production level.
Some private investors also start creating great
plantation fields up to 50ha.
So, those new investment initiatives from the private
sector encourage small producers to invest as well.
Investors are now building new washing stations
for a better processing and the production of "specialty"
coffee of high quality. As a result we can feel
that international financial institutions are sensitised
by this initiative and start helping us develop
the sector.
USAID is highly involved in helping producers' associations.
It even helps them to place their production on
the US market.
We have noted that all the entities involved
in the sector tend to get vertically integrated,
leading to a reduction of intermediaries and a better
synergy between producers and distributors. What
has been your role in this process?
It is our role to promote the creation of associations
between producers, exporters and make them come
together to discuss the best policies to adopt in
order to develop efficiently the sector. Those global
structures ease the access to loans as they facilitate
the task of local financial institutions when it
comes to providing funds and services to the sector.
Apart from the USA, what are the export markets
that you are currently targeting?
We are constantly prospecting for new markets. But
as long as our coffee's quality improves, we know
that we will not have any difficulties in selling
it. Recently, there was a conference on specialty
coffee held in Norway. Four Rwandan exporters went
there to present samples that were highly rated.
Those companies have now established contacts that
will enable them to sell their production to the
Norwegian market. Of course, we have to strengthen
the promotion and the marketing of our coffee throughout
the world.
How do you intend to position your coffee on
the regional market?
Uganda, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Kenya and Tanzania have
created an association called "East African
Fine Coffee Association" (EAFCA). So, we work
together to promote the coffee from the region.
I was recently in London for the ICO (International
Coffee Organization) conference. The Vice - President
of "Starbucks", an American Coffee Importing
Company that owns Coffee shops in USA and Europe,
mentioned the fact that they would like to buy a
lot of coffee from Eastern Africa. But now we have
the possibility to enter the competition as our
quality is improving. What we want to is to create
"label" for each country of the region
but promote and sell it together. Within 2 years
time, Rwanda should be able to sell some of its
coffee through Internet auctions. In the meantime,
we keep on selling through our four private exporters.
But we are not only targeting international markets,
we are also trying to promote our coffee on the
national and regional market as we believe the COMESA
Free Trade Area can bring us new opportunities.
The key is to create the need for our coffee and
for that we have to emphasize on promoting our product. |
