Lucrative investment
TWO businessmen have started a venture to establish a coffee enterprise in Fiji which would see a much higher return compared with other root crops on the market.
This could prove to be a lucrative investment for farmers as well as the pair plan to distribute coffee seedlings to those interested in starting their coffee farms.
Founders of Coffee Farm Fiji, Aiaz Hamid and Dr Rajnesh Sant started the initiative of developing the coffee industry around 2013.
Dr Sant and Mr Hamid were both looking for crops to produce and discovered the world's second most traded commodity a place to start.
“So we were looking to get into agro-crops. We looked at a few things and we saw coffee was the second largest commodity traded in the world after crude oil, a $20 billion industry,” said Dr Sant.
“Coffee grows in a very narrow band in the world which is in the tropic of Cancer and tropic of Capricorn.
“So all the countries along this corridor are the best place to grow coffee and Fiji is one of those countries.
“Coffee is like wine, its called a terra crop the quality of coffee, the cup quality depends on the weather conditions.”
According to Dr Sant this proved a very good crop to be grown in Fiji and after comparing agro-crops in Fiji and it was revealed coffee would give farmers a much better return on their investment.
“That encouraged us to look for coffee so we knew in the 1800s in the colonial times they used to grow coffee here.
“So we started scouting over Fiji for coffee and the first one we discovered was on Taveuni.
“We went there to engage the farmers and we worked out the process from picking the coffee cherries as it is a long complicated process.”
Dr Sant also revealed they had set up model farms on Taveuni where they had purchased land and if the seedlings grew to their expectations they would want to replicate it all over the country.
“We realised the coffee growing conditions the best ones are up in the hills, the higher the altitudes the better it is for coffee and the people living there are the most marginalised farmers in Fiji.
“So they wouldn't have much capital to input, so we have decided to provide them with seedlings free of charge, give them all the technical information from planting to maintaining the farms to harvesting.
“Once the farmers have harvested the plants CFF would then buy their coffee cherries through the agreement which would be established between the farmers and the company.
“We have been scouting around Fiji and on Vanua Levu and Viti Levu there are pockets of old coffee plants growing wild.
“Wherever there is coffee we will help the farmers revive their plantations because it is all over grown and not maintained and then start a nursery and supply seedlings to all those interested.
“We launched our website and the interest has been overwhelming people just want to get into coffee.”
CFF has been giving out 200,000 seedlings to farmers to start coffee farming and according to Mr Hamid they were trial farming on coastal to low altitude level as well.
Three main variety or species of coffee have been identified to be growing in Fiji currently.
According to Dr Sant the coffee grown from the sea level to 900 metres in land were Robustus.
The Arabica was a common coffee plant which did well 900 metres above sea level and had 70 per cent cultivation around the world.
The rare and most expensive coffees were 12,000 meters above sea level altitude and these were the libarica which made up of 1 per cent of the species around the world and had a high value under the right conditions.
“They (government) had given us a project of the value of return on coffee within these three years if we rotate these seedlings into larger farms,” said Mr Hamid.
A three-year projection based on 100,000 seedlings would result in a $14 million estimated gross income for the company.
“His discovery was one of the high value coffees which were Liberica which was one of the seedlings they were giving out,” he said, adding this was sold at $US100 ($F220) per kg on Amazon.
“So we have got coffee plantation already set up in the Yasawa trail farm under Coffee Farm Fiji,” he said.
“So he is setting up farms where he can get higher production levels so he is looking at orchid farming he is setting up the orchid farms to get the highest yields of coffee through more structured farming processes.
“Agroforestry which is a high canopy top farming where the yield is less but the value of the crop is higher,” said Mr Hamid.
“And because its agroforestry so coffee also does well under the shades of trees so there won’t be deforestation with the forest,” added Dr Sant.
The most critical part of this research according to them was establishing the low altitude and low coastal farming which was for farmers who are doing sugar cane farming and wanted to swap to new crops.
“Coffee once you plant the seedlings after three years you start harvesting 20 years you don’t have to change the crop,” said Mr Hamid.
“Within the process one acre through his orchid farming process can result in $10,000 of income for the coffee farmers per acre.”
Dr Sant had also carried out a massive survey around the country in terms of interested farmers and farmers who had already established coffee farms.
“There’s massive interest all over Fiji we have been overwhelmed with people wanting to plant coffee,” he said.
The challenge for both of them was to get the seedlings to the farmers so they could raise it and set up nurseries at different places where people were interested.
According to the pair most of these farmers would require the necessary training in harvesting as some of them had the trees but not the necessary processing technology.
“Currently we are locating all the coffee plants there are and then we are telling them how and which coffee and when to harvest,” said Dr Sant.
“So we are buying those cherries off them and processing it ourselves so that is the initial step.
“Then we will help them revive the old plantations and all the interested people will be supplied with seedlings for farming.”
He said Fiji imported $4m worth of coffee every year and meeting the local market would take some time.
According to Dr Sant hotels were selling imported coffee however there would be an interest once locally produced coffee came into the market.
“So that increases the market and those tourists that are coming in we are planning to set up a coffee boutique shop where people can actually buy,” he said.
Mr Hamid said they had noticed there were a lot of coffee producers and manufactures in Fiji that did not support the local industry.
“So when we did this exercise that’s when we see them coming out and asking us if we could join up to our coffee farms in terms of supporting the industry,” he added.
Both partners started this initiative as philanthropy and were receiving calls from current coffee producers who are importing beans from overseas companies.
Mr Hamid said CFF was a nonprofit organisation and were aimed at helping farmers establish a sustainable yet lucrative livelihood.
Once the company has established the farms across the country they would then look into establishing processing factories to facilitate with the manufacturing of locally made coffee beans.