Global Scope
Yemen coffee in the specialty market
by David Griswold

Children of Yemen

Daniele Giovannucci has an unusual job in coffee. He is a senior consultant on coffee for the World Bank, and he advises international development agencies such as the United Nations and USAID on strategies for producing countries. He was the principal author of the definitive work on the sustainable coffee markets - The State of Sustainable Coffee: A Study of Twelve Major Markets - completed in 2003. He is well versed in the issues of global supply and demand of coffee, and has advised several producing countries on developing national coffee strategies. In the past decade, he has helped producing countries as diverse as El Salvador, Vietnam and now Yemen better implement their strategic coffee policies.

Beyond the coffee trees

I recently spoke with Giovannucci after he returned from a trip to remote coffee areas in Yemen. I asked him to share what keeps him moving to new coffee countries to help develop coffee market strategies. My heart is in the field work, Giovannucci explains. I guess there is a deep connection for me with origin, as I came from a small farm family in Northern Italy, and some of my earliest fond memories are accompanying my mom to the fields. Giovannucci says that combining that love of agriculture with his business experience, both in developing countries and running a chain of gourmet stores (called Fantes, which feature dozens of different whole bean coffees), prepared him at both ends of the spectrum for the realities of advising the World Bank and other multilateral institutions.

My role is to serve as a link between these worlds of aid agency projects or research and the situation on the ground at origin and see what is needed, says Giovannucci. From the sustainable coffee studies we've done, we can see that something is missing. Producers need support to help decide what they might focus on so, of course, they need accurate information. One of my roles is to work with producers to identify what information they need and then help see that they can get it. Sometimes, it is market information; sometimes, it is helping to build the capacity of local institutions (like CIMS in Latin America) to get the information themselves.

The specialty coffee industry's leadership and focus on sustainable issues has been one reason Giovannucci finds it so interesting to work in this industry. He has learned from his studies that while agriculture has been determined as one of the greatest dangers to biodiversity and environment in terms of the damage created by human activity, the specialty coffee sector is creating initiatives to change that trend. To the credit of the industry, specialty coffee moved on its own volition to focus on sustainable issues, says Giovannucci. Most other industries are forced to do so by outside pressure, but not so with specialty coffee. It was far ahead in setting the pace, and today, many of the new social and environmental standards and certification systems are originating from the coffee sector.

Giovannucci considers his recent work in Yemen, which is financed by the U.S. government, to be some of the most interesting he's done. With Yemen, the word 'unique' comes up again and again, he says. I've worked in perhaps 15 origin countries, and I don't see anything like Yemen anywhere else. The plants themselves are different, the domestic consumption of coffee is very high, and the ways of coffee cultivation are from the middle ages: they are using cultivation techniques that go back perhaps some 700 years. Of course, there is also the coffee's flavor that is unlike any other.

A coffee wholesaler

While some of Yemen's coffees are prized around the world, especially in markets like Saudi Arabia, and receive high prices in excess of $3 per pound for green coffee, the low yields, water constraints and lack of clear traceability make it hard for roasters to get a consistent supply of Yemenese coffee from harvest to harvest. The plants are sometimes more than 100 years old, and with the dry climate, they are stressed and offer a very low yield, says Giovannucci. You can't really increase coffee production there very much. It is often cultivated either in narrow valleys or on steep mountain terraces - sometimes at altitudes of up to [8,200 feet] - and there is no extra space to grow more!

Giovannucci inspects greenhouses with a team.

Because of its remote terrain and lack of water, Yemen's coffee sector faces great challenges going forward. But as Giovannucci knows well, if he can help the Yemen coffee sector develop a viable coffee market strategy in conjunction with new USAID investments there, he will have done his part to increase producer incomes and sustainability, as well as to enhance the reputation of Yemen as a reliable source of a unique and historic specialty coffee.

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