Ethiopia, Basha Bekele

Bensa Region

Ethiopia is a coffee powerhouse. It's the birthplace of the plant, the seventh largest producing country in world, and one of the world's leading consumers of coffee as well. Because coffee is such a vital part of the economy in Ethiopia, the government has a hand in it, making for an interesting coffee context. Ethiopia is proudly a nation that has never been colonized, and the longtime government has been from a tribal minority (the Tigray). In 2018 there was a coup that installed an Oromo president - the largest tribe in Ethiopia. Its namesake region, Oromia, sprawls awkwardly south and west from the capital city Addis Ababa - and covers the majority of coffee territory in Ethiopia. Of the over 100 million people in Ethiopia, almost 15 million rely on coffee for income. Coffee accounts for 60% of foreign income and is about 40% of total country exports. 

Basha's father-also a community man who with Basha built a church for the community at their site in Bombe-was once a manager for a co-op in Bombe that supplied coffee to the Sidama Union. Before the government made it possible for smallholders to obtain export licenses, both Basha and his father sold their cherry to the cooperative. Basha now has his own export license and grows coffee (primarily 74158, known locally as "Walega" in semi-forested plots on 12 hectares in addition to operating collection sites in Bombe, Shantawane, and Kokose-collecting cherry from producers growing coffee as high as 2300 masl. While cherry prices were high this year, Basha maintained a practice we didn't see everywhere: delivering a second payment to the 126 producers he bought cherry from once the coffee sold. Like most smallholders around Bensa, Basha exclusively produces dry processes-which includes experiments with anaerobic styles of fermentation-and practices cherry flotation before drying his coffee slowly on raised beds, with some preparations drying under shade.