Uganda

DARK MATTER PARADIGM | http://www.darkmatterparadigm.blogspot.com "Every society and economy that's prospered has done it through their own hard work, ingenuity, dedication and commitment." - Andrew Rugasira, Good African Coffee. July 20, 2013 - UGANDA - Tired of seeing developed nations take the lion's share of profits from his countrymen's coffee crop, Ugandan businessman Andrew Rugasira decided back in 2003 that it was time for a new business arrangement. Uganda is Africa's second-biggest exporter of coffee beans, currently producing around 3.4 million bags per year. Yet instead of being refined locally, the vast majority of the country's raw beans have been traditionally exported in the consuming countries of the West for processing. But Rugasira's vision was to create a quality Ugandan coffee company that would be able to place a finished product on the shelves of both local and international supermarkets. trained economist, he devised a business model encouraging local coffee farmers to sell their beans to him at a fair price. His company would then roast, package and brand the final product, whilst the profits would be split 50/50. "The hard part was saying, 'look, I think as Africans we need to begin to look at ourselves as a solution to some of these problems of systemic poverty and underdevelopment. We have blessed soils, you guys have a commodity which is of great value," says Rugasira, recalling his first meetings to convince the farmers in Uganda's Kasese district. "We can pay you a premium price; we can also add value to your knowledge; we can help train you; we can set up savings and credit co-ops and we can really work together and begin to own the value chain which is historically being controlled outside the producer country. "We needed to change that -- and through trade we could bring prosperity to our farmers and their communities." These words by Rugasira planted the seeds for what went on to become Good African Coffee, a Kampala-based company that has helped transform the lives of thousands of farmers in Uganda. Over the last nine years Good African Coffee says it has built a network of more than 14,000 coffee farmers, who are organized into 280 farmer groups. The company, which is the first African-owned coffee brand to be available in British supermarkets, has also helped local farmers to set up several savings and credit cooperatives. "(It's) about empowerment and it's also about ownership," says Rugasira. "It's about owning the value chain, growing the coffee, processing it at source and it's about exporting a finished product," he adds. "So we retain the value, which means we can employ people, we can pay taxes, we can prosper our farmers and their communities. And that's the only sustainable way in which societies have prospered -- by moving from low-value agriculture into high-value manufacturing industrialization." At the heart of all of Rugasira's efforts is his strong belief in the transformative power of self-help. In trade, and not aid, he says, is where Africa's future well-being lies. DARK MATTER PARADIGM | http://www.darkmatterparadigm.blogspot.com The mystery and history of the first peoples - The Indigenous, Original Moors. Balancing chaos through the order of the 42 Affirmations of the Ma'at, in the spiritualization of matter. FAIR USE NOTICE: These pages/video may contain copyrighted (© ) material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such material is made available to advance understanding of ecological, POLITICAL, HUMAN RIGHTS, economic, DEMOCRACY, scientific, MORAL, ETHICAL, and SOCIAL JUSTICE ISSUES, etc. It is believed that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior general interest in receiving similar information for research and educational. TAGS: Blacks, Black Business, Good African Coffee, Small Company, Uganda, Andrew Rugasira, Coffee Beans, International Markets, Global Coffee Brand, Kasese District, African Voices, Economics, Business

• published: 21 Jul 2013
• views: 18060