A lot has been written about the increasingly volatile situation between the Ethiopian government and Somalia over the territory of Somaliland. However, the unique position that the coffee industry is in to be able to put a significant amount of pressure on the government to instead find peaceful solutions is yet to be talked about.
“Coffee is the country’s biggest export, worth over $1B, which is 25-30% of its total export earnings,” explains Will Corby, Director of Coffee and Social Impact, Pact Coffee. “To buy it, we must pay dollars into the Ethiopian central bank. The government can then choose whether it wants to retain more dollars or Ethiopian currency (birr).
“This government needs dollars to buy arms, and for this reason, it has limited the amount of foreign currency that exporters can retain. Clearly, this is being used to purchase arms and, ultimately, exacerbate this conflict.”
In a typical year, Pact Coffee would spend $200,000 on Ethiopian coffee. However, Corby explains the roaster can’t consciously do that knowing that a large portion of this would go on arms, furthering conflicts that have already claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and put tens of millions at risk of famine. So, Pact Coffee isn’t currently buying Ethiopian coffee, and won’t be buying any for the foreseeable future.
Corby continues: “If the rest of the coffee industry followed suit and acted together, it could put a significant amount of pressure on the Ethiopian government to find a peaceful solution to what has been a devastating four years in the country.
“It’s regrettable that the only way to do this is to completely stop buying Ethiopian coffee when you think of the impact that this will have on Ethiopian farmers. But if this short-term solution contributes to an end of devastating conflicts, surely it’s the lesser of two evils.”
