The Oromia Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union (OCFCU) is an Ethiopian agricultural cooperative federation, established in June 1999, representing approximately 102,950 coffee growers, processors, and exporters of the Oromia Region of southern and western Ethiopia. The union's members are organized into 115 cooperatives. They grow coffee of the arabica species exclusively, and produce both conventionally grown and organically grown beans. The union has chosen to bypass many of the middlemen that characterize the international coffee trade, sorting, roasting, and exporting its own coffee rather than simply growing and picking it the way most other Ethiopian coffee farmers do. The union returns 70 percent of its gross profits to its cooperatives.
According to the OCFCU's website, the union's goals are as follows:
- To improve the farmer's income by exporting their coffee
- To maintain the quality of coffee production
- To improve and maintain the sustainability of the coffee industry
- To improve the quality and productivity of Ethiopian coffee
- To regulate and stabilize local markets
- To provide farmers and clients with reliable service
The OCFCU's headquarters are located in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital, and its General Manager is Tadesse Meskela.
Meskela and the OCFCU are featured in the 2006 documentary film Black Gold.
On January 30, 2007, Meskela had a meeting with the United Kingdom's prime minister, Tony Blair.
The OCFCU has received assistance from Oxfam International to upgrade its offices.
Read more about Oromia Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union: See Also
Famous quotes containing the words coffee, farmers, cooperative and/or union:
“Mrs. Small went to the kitchen for her pocketbook
And came back to the living room with a peculiar look
And the coffee pot.
Pocketbook. Pot.
Pot. Pocketbook.”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)
“Why should all virtue work in one and the same way? Why should all give dollars? It is very inconvenient to us country folk, and we do not think any good will come of it. We have not dollars; merchants have; let them give them. Farmers will give corn; poets will sing; women will sew; laborers will lend a hand; the children will bring flowers.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Then we grow up to be Daddy. Domesticated men with undomesticated, frontier dreams. Suddenly life—or is it the children?—is not as cooperative as it ought to be. It’s tough to be in command of anything when a baby is crying or a ten-year-old is in despair. It’s tough to feel a sense of control when you’ve got to stop six times during the half-hour ride to Grandma’s.”
—Hugh O’Neill (20th century)
“The monk in hiding himself from the world becomes not less than himself, not less of a person, but more of a person, more truly and perfectly himself: for his personality and individuality are perfected in their true order, the spiritual, interior order, of union with God, the principle of all perfection.”
—Thomas Merton (1915–1968)