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By Shapi Shacinda
[Reuters]
MUBUYU FARM, Zambia, July 22 (Reuters) - Perched in the little Munali
Hills of southern Zambia, the Mubuyu coffee farm is carving a name for
itself in this poor southern African country as it seeks fresh revenue
streams away from copper.
At the centre of the enterprise is 57-year-old Dutch-born farmer,
Willem Lublinkhof, who knew little about coffee growing when he
settled in Zambia at the age 22.
Lublinkhof, who abandoned growing wheat for laborious but lucrative
coffee farming only four years ago, has been patiently waiting to
garner the benefits from his 1,600 hectare (3,954 acres) farm, of
which 550 hectares (1,359 acres) is currently growing coffee.
In that short time Lublinkhof -- along with his wife Meta, the farm's
financial controller, and his son Jesper, Mubuyu's managing director
-- has turned this family business into a major coffee enterprise,
employing 1,440 workers.
"Coffee growing is like looking after a baby...you must have the
ability to care for it on a daily basis and we have that
ability," Lublinkhof told Reuters, as he sipped coffee, sitting
in a rocking chair in his living room.
Mubuyu, which produced 200 tonnes of arabica coffee -- fondly referred
to as Munali coffee -- in 2002, would raise production to 550 tonnes
in 2003 to earn about $1 million and then stabilise at 1,200 tonnes
next year, he said.
"Our whole investment should go up to about $9 million or $10
million in the next two years. We have currently spent about $7
million, all of it provided by Barclays Bank," Lublinkhof said.
Lublinkhof said expansion would be matched with increased employment.
The unemployment rate in Zambia is 50 percent.
"We currently employ 1,440 workers, but we intend to double that
as we expand our coffee growing. We are looking forward to getting
good returns, but only when the prices on the international market
pick up," he said.
COFFEE AFTER COPPER
Mubuyu is a model for coffee growing in Zambia, which expects a
national total coffee output of about 6,500 tonnes in the 2003/04
marketing season (Aug/Mar), up from 6,000 tonnes in the previous
season.
Under the slogan "coffee after copper," Lublinkhof is
leading an ambitious coffee expansion programme to earn Zambia the
much-needed foreign
exchange away from copper mining.
Years of under-capitalisation and poor management made it hard to run
the copper mines profitably. Production slumped to just around 338,000
tonnes in 2003 compared to a peak of 700,000 tonnes in the mid-1970s,
according to
Zambia Treasury data.
"We are eager to grow coffee on a larger scale...we expect to
earn $8.5 million in the coming season from about 6,500 tonnes of
coffee," said Will Ross, general manager of the Zambia Coffee
Growers Association (ZCGA).
Zambia earned $7 million after exporting just over 6,000 tonnes of
coffee during the previous marketing season (April/March 2002/03),
Ross told
Reuters. "We have big farms like Mubuyu which are producing very
encouraging results."
About 94 percent of Zambian coffee is directed to Europe, with one
percent going to the United States via Europe, and some to Japan.
Although the southern African country is a tiny grower, Ross said it
was expanding the market for its Triple A and Double A speciality
grades. Zambia is projected to export 15,000 tonnes of coffee by
2005/06 and 35,000 tonnes by 2020.
It currently has 68 commercial coffee farms, of which only 30 export
coffee, as well as 550 small-scale farmers.
BIG PLANS, LOWER RATES
South African agronomist Chris Barnard said Mubuyu Farm was poised for
success because it is the only coffee farm in the southern African
region where a method of coffee growing known as open field
hydroponics is being employed.
"The open field hydroponic system controls the amount of soil in
which the coffee tree grows...it controls the amount of fertiliser and
nutrients that a tree should get to grow properly," said Barnard,
who frequently visits Mubuyu as a consultant, from his Cape Town base
in South Africa.
"It is the most expensive irrigation method in the world but it
produces good results," Lublinkhof added.
With farmers like Lublinkhof at the helm of the coffee expansion
drive, Ross sees Zambia claiming a place among the world's biggest
coffee exporters in years to come.
But to do so, farmers need to access loans with lower interest rates.
"Interest rates (in their high 40s) are not encouraging coffee
farming...we need cheap capital. This, complemented with good prices,
will make us (Zambia) a big producer," Lublinkhof said.
After winning a second prize at the Taste Coffees of the World
Competition in London in October 2002, his morale has been boosted and
he is
not looking back.
"Munali coffee is enjoyed by Europeans, particularly the
Scandinavians and Germans...the Japanese and the Dutch also like it.
This is good for our expansion," he said.
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