Cash crops
As an addendum to my lengthy post about coffee, the Times has a heart-warming story today, or possibly tomorrow, about how Rwandans are growing coffee to develop their economy.
It makes my point a little clearer, perhaps, about how coffee-philes are getting into the international origins of the beans:
Rwanda, a tiny East African country recently rent by a famously savage civil war, has found hope in that most colonial of crops: coffee. By riding booming demand in the developed world for specialty brews — and, to a certain extent, by turning its own challenges to its advantage — Rwanda has made premium coffee-growing a national priority. That has not only brought in a trickle of money to a country with little else to trade, but provided a stage on which one-time blood enemies can reconcile their terrible history.
“By improving the quality of their coffee, about 40,000 of Rwanda’s 500,000 coffee farmers have at least doubled their incomes,” said Kevin J. Mullally, who runs the office of the United States Agency for International Development, or A.I.D., in Kigali, the Rwandan capital. “Coffee has played a crucial role in the positive changes in Rwanda.”
Well, look at that. Economic development in cash-crop agriculture — something the United States and Europe are so good at stifling via trade barriers and subsidies — is capable of helping to cure a wide range of social ills! If only we could get past the monopolistic and anti-capitalist practices of some of the big Midwetsern farm conglomerates and their bought-and-sold congressmen, who knows how many Rwandas could bloom.
So if you’re wondering whether you should indulge in that coffee, the answer is yes. And find yourself a nice cup of Rwandan roast, too.
commenting closed for this article