Wait, you're a what?

   Anyone who has studied or read-up on the topic of rural development, especially international rural development has seen lists of reasons for why one community is lagging behind the rest in terms of quality of life. The laundry list will generally include the following (students of rural development take note): Poor transport infrastructure, Poor communication infrastructure, Disease epidemics, Wars/Civil unrest, Corrupt government officials, Degraded soils, International trade barriers, etc... In these lists, there is another common character who is probably one of the more vague and enigmatic boogey-men of underdevelopment, a man we like to call the Middle-Man. The Middle-Man (Mr M for short) is a lazy good for nothing who buys from vulnerable farmers at give-away prices and resells without adding any value to a product, except maybe to transport it to a better market town, and laughs all the way to the bank.He is blamed for keeping markets dis-integrated and taking a much greater share of the final market price of an agricultural commodity than the primary producer.

   So with this concept in my mind of what a Middle-Man is, you can imagine my surprise when this week a friend described his goat business to me. In addition to keeping and selling some of his own goats, this man purchases goats in the morning of each market day (every 8 days in Oku) then re-sells them to traders who come in from larger cities later in the day. If you didn't get how that worked, I'll make a diagram, see Figure 1 transactions a and b. From what I've been taught, that's what Middle-Men do, and it is bad. This all takes place in the same spot each market day, about 300 meters from the main market. He can apparently make about a 2,000 Franc (~$4) profit per goat, so most market days he'll take between 6,000 and 10,000 Francs. Keep in mind that 2,000 Francs is considered a very decent days pay by most people in Oku.

   Now what I have to ask is why doesn't the man who sold the goat in the morning wait a couple of hours and sell it for 2,000 Francs more later in the day (See figure 1 transaction '?')? Here's how that question gets answered (from my memory and put into clearer terms):

Me – So why do they sell to you if they could sell for more later in the day?

Friend – They couldn't get more later in the day.

Me – Why not? You do.

Friend – But these traders from Douala wouldn't give them the same price. Farmers know that they would get taken advantage of, but they trust me. They sell to me for a higher price than they could get from those traders from out of town.

Me – So you pretty much run the goat market for Oku?

Friend – There are 8 of us who are partners.

Me – What if someone doesn't want to sell to you, they want to try selling direct to the men from out of town?

Friend – They can do that, but any man who comes from out of town knows that he only has to come to us and he can get goats.

   How does this change my view of 'Middle-Men'? Well, my friends not a bad guy from what I know of him and really it seems that what he is doing is what is best for the Oku community. Instead of having individuals all trying to sell their goats to out-of-towners, probably undercutting each others prices in the process, the market is centralized, giving a greater advantage to the seller (My friend). As a member of the community, my friend is acting under social pressures that oblige him to offer reasonable prices for goats and once the goats are in his possession it is in his interest to get the best price possible from those out-of-towners. 

   It can be a fine line between providing a service and exploiting an unwary farmer. Perhaps more money is actually getting to Oku because of my friend's goat market than would be if it wasn't there. I won't be doing any serious investigations into the matter, but I imagine that as the coffee buying season approaches I'll start to see a lot of similar commercial activity surrounding the purchase of dried beans and it won't be easy to see when that line is being crossed. We'll be doing our best to be sure we can stay safely on the service side of things.

Salt is to pepper as 'Development' is to ...

Meetings!!! Cause that's what we do.

   Oku is where I sleep now. I have an apartment with a parlor, small kitchen area, bedroom, and shower. The latrine is outside, about 25 meters away. It isn't covered yet so when it rains it is not a comfortable place to be. I'm hoping that the landlord gets on that sooner than later.

   What we've been doing this week is re-visiting the farmer groups that we made contact with two weeks ago when Philip was here. As I am trying to be the person doing most of the communication, I tried to keep the meetings small (2-3 people), but that didn't really work out. Most of the groups Cassman and I spoke to were between 10 and 20 people and in the end Cassman or someone else acted as my translator taking my 'strong' English into the Oku language.

   The items covered in each meeting were the organization of Mocha Joes Organic Growers, the rules (or by-laws) or being an organic grower, and setting a program for our field visits which is the real first step toward certification. In describing the organization of Mocha Joes Organic Growers, I used a flow chart as a visual aid (I'm pretty sure I've seen charts like this used to describe organizations here in Cameroon in the past). To make it more understandable I drew the chart for each group piece by piece, describing the roles and responsibilities of each person as they were added. Everyone was very attentive as I was speaking and I'll have to assume that Cassman was doing a good job of translating, but in the end the information may or may not have been effectively conveyed. What are some good ways to check for comprehension in a small group? Asking questions in an exercise like this doesn't seem quite appropriate, I would feel like I was being condescending. My brother, the high school math teacher, gave me the advice 'You just need to speak louder than anyone else in the room, that way, even if people don't understand you, they think you know what you're talking about' (he was joking). Of course being a white person here has essentially the same effect, even if you were to whisper.

   The next steps are going to depend on our team (Philip, myself, and Cassman) to start our field visits. After getting some experience with them we will be better able to divide ourselves to get the most of our time. In the meanwhile I'll be spending some of my time visiting the farms of our members to get myself some exercise and become more comfortable on these coffee farms. I guarantee there will also be a meeting or two thrown in, just to be safe.

First Visit to Oku

   This week, Philip (Mocha Joes Director in Cameroon) and I traveled to Oku village. The journey took about 3 hours from Bamenda and takes you over two ridge lines, providing some breath taking views of the valleys below with steep green hillsides spotted with boulders and sheer cliffs. Oku village itself is situated in a horseshoe shaped valley with the open end facing east and Mount Oku (the second highest peak in Cameroon) situated to the south.

   Around the valley, houses and compounds are spread out with a few clusters of larger buildings where you can find shops to buy food, get a moto repaired, or recharge your credit. Above most of this is the largest market area, Elak, where you can find the bus station and plenty of commercial activity (even a cyber cafe, which I'll be making use of once I'm up there). While the highest parts of the valley are dominated by forests with an assortment of tree and shrub species that you don't find elsewhere in Cameroon, the rest is heavily cultivated with Irish potatoes, onions, maize, beans, bananas/plantains, taro, yam, etc. (pretty much standard field crops for Cameroon). Then there is the coffee. Much more coffee than I am used to seeing, especially from my time in the West Region. Coffee is planted throughout the valley; sometimes in small clusters and in a few cases in areas up to about one hectare. Generally, it is being grown under some kind of shade, but frequently that is only a small number of trees which may or may be well tended. Similarly, the coffee itself ranges from looking healthy, well-pruned, and the fields well cleared to a minority of fields looking neglected. Most fall somewhere in the middle, generally toward the better cared for side.

   Our work in the two and a half days we were in Oku was to meet with farmers groups in quarters across Oku and the neighboring village Mbessa. Philip and I managed to hold seven meetings with the help of our friend Kenneth (better known as the Cassman) and Gilbert organized several others in Mbessa on his own. In the end we were able to communicate with well over 100 coffee farmers. Our goals were to introduce ourselves (me for the first time, a re-introduction for Philip who has met many of these individuals as a representative for Mocha Joes and in his previous work in the coffee trade) and the organic program we want to initiate. The pitch we adopted highlighted the economic benefits a certified organic farmer could claim and the how the use of organic methods can protect the health of the farmer and consumer. We also stressed that every coffee farmer in the village is being invited to the program voluntarily, even if they are currently using fertilizers or other chemical and won't be certified 'organic' in this first year.

   The men and women who attended these meetings had many questions about the practicality of organic growing versus conventional. Philip and I did our best to explain that for any chemical or extensive growing strategy there is an effective organic alternative. In the end, most people seemed convinced that if they were not currently using any chemical inputs, it would be good for them to apply to the program and people who are using inputs thought it would be a good idea to enter some, but not all, of their fields into the program. Philip and I agreed that this would be a good course and a good way to 'hedge their bet' in trying organic growing.I am particularly happy that many farmers see splitting their fields as a way to protect themselves from a risky new idea because it shows that they have realistic expectations and do not expect the fields converted to organic to immediately out perform their other fields without additional investments of capital and labor.