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OROMIA's Achievements
If you ever need a Fair Trade shot of inspiration – take a look at what OROMIA Coffee Farmers’ Cooperative Union has been able to achieve in its short 10-year history! Their astounding amount of growth has inspired the coop to increase its capacity by providing helpful services to its members. From establishing its own bank to constructing an internal processing plant, OROMIA has come a long way since it began.
OROMIA has experienced staggering growth, from 34 farmer cooperatives representing 22,503 families in 1999, to their current membership of 129 famer cooperatives representing 128,361 families! Likewise, sales volumes have grown from an initial 126 tons to last year’s exports topping 3598 tons! This impressive growth has been the driving force feeding OROMIA’s need for its own central dry processing plant.
That processing plant – currently under construction outside of Addis Ababa – is budgeted at a cost of 30 million birr (approx 9 birr / US$1) is being paid for by OROMIA internal funds. This major construction project – a top priority for OROMIA - was stalled for more than a year because of a national shortage of cement in Ethiopia. But with some 100 people now employed on site, the construction is back on track!
“This plant should give us much better capacity to follow the coffee and assure every step of the way good quality control,” says OROMIA Manager Tadesse Meskela.
It should also speed up their export delivery schedule by avoiding the wait for dry processing at the Ethiopian Central Warehouse and National Processing Plant. The new installations include two warehouses with holding capacity of 10,000 tons each and a line of sorting machinery with a capacity of processing 7 tons of coffee per hour.
“We are getting good dividends back to the farmers,” Tadesse says. “But the Fair Trade premiums can only go back to the cooperatives registered under FLO. This is creating an economic divide amongst our members. Only if the poor can all join hands, will we be able to pull ourselves out of poverty.”
Last year OCFCU was able to channel more than US$1 million in dividends to farmers - above and beyond the national price for coffee cherry paid at the farmgate - and invested US$500,000 in social projects from their Fair Trade premiums.
OCFCU now has 28 of their total 146 coops FLO certified. But OCFCU Manager Tadesse Meskela would like all to be registered under the OROMIA umbrella. “Fair Trade has done a lot,” Tadesse says. “But it still needs a lot more promotion.”
Other important achievements at OROMIA Union include:
The creation of their own Cooperative Bank. Initially, a central, cooperative bank was formed by requesting 400 birr from each OCFCU member. The bank now has a $10 million birr fund and 23 regional branches;- OCFCU has established its own insurance company, which covers coffee against theft ofr loss in transport;
- And they are in process of completing the hulling station in Harar – with a third of the cost paid for by Trabocca to provide the machinery and the remainder to cover the construction of patios, installation of the generator and selectors paid for by Oromia Union.
