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Well, sometimes what everybody knows is not necessarily the whole truth. Local coffee farmer Dylan Cumming thinks differently.
His family has been farming coffee on their farm, Beaver Creek on the KZN South Coast, for close to 40 years. And here’s the interesting bit. They grow great coffee even though the farm is only 200 metres above sea level, and it’s at 31oS, so it’s neither in the tropics nor at altitude. But you can balance them out – higher latitude and lower altitude give you the perfect laltitude (and if that’s not a word yet, it should be).
And sometimes there are true things that very few people know. For example, consumers know that coffee prices are constantly increasing, so they assume coffee farmers worldwide are getting paid more. Sadly, that’s not true. The journey a coffee bean takes from tree to consumer is one fraught with financial and administrative obstacles, and price increases are greater the further you get up the supply chain, which means the coffee farmer is paid a tiny percentage of what you as a consumer end up paying for your beans at the supermarket or your local roaster. So you’d think planting coffee is probably not a good business proposition, but that’s defeatist. Yes, the market is not fair to the farmer in general, but that can change, and it is changing.
For the past few years Dylan has been spreading the word about coffee, persuading South African farmers and landowners that it’s a viable crop – even in very small quantities. Ten years ago, there were fewer than 10 coffee farms in South Africa, and now there are more than 50. Some are reasonably sized, and some are tiny. None is at altitude, and most are in KwaZulu-Natal or Mpumalanga, with a few in the Eastern Cape and Limpopo. And guess what? Two of those coffee farms in KZN are on residential estates – Fairview Estates and Elaleni Coastal Forest Estate.
Fairview Estates just outside Ballito is a community of like-minded people who live on smallholdings of at least two hectares and up to 40 hectares. Almost all of them grow at least a few veggies, but most also grow other crops – mainly macadamia nuts, litchis, papaya – and keep bees for honey. But one resident, Charli Denison, has planted 1,000 Coffea racemosa trees, and is about to plant 10,000 Coffea arabica trees. We all know and love Arabica coffee because it is by far the tastiest of the two most widely grown varieties. But not many people know about C. racemosa. ‘It’s indigenous to northern KZN and Mozambique,’ says Charli, ‘so it grows really well and is naturally pest-resistant, and drought tolerant.’ It’s very different from C. arabica, with a totally unique flavour profile that you either love or hate, but it is rapidly gaining a worldwide following and becoming a bit of a cult coffee.
There are a few hundred trees on Elaleni too, as part of the public landscaping – mostly C. arabica, but also some C. racemosa. Now this may seem like just a nice idea in the case of Elaleni, because coffee trees are as pretty as any others to plant, and you could be forgiven for thinking
that Charli is being a tad over-optimistic planting 10,000 coffee trees, but – and here’s where it gets really exciting – the whole South African coffee supply chain is in the process of being disrupted. In a good way.
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Even the most avid climate change denialists are starting to rethink their stance, and the traditional coffee-growing areas are and will be experiencing more and more severe drought.
There are about 130 species of coffee but only Arabica and Robusta are so far being produced in serious commercial quantities, so the worldwide coffee industry is dependent on only two species. Arabica is quite susceptible to disease, climate change, and other stress, so the supply chain might become constrained and could even break down completely. It’s not unreasonable to say that life as we know it would be over if there were no coffee.
This is why forward-thinking people in the industry are looking for alternative coffee species. And, so far, Racemosa is one of the front-runners.
If you’re keen on planting some coffee on your estate (or even in your garden), contact Dylan. He’s mapped out the areas in which coffee will grow well – and it adds up to a whopping 750,000 hectares. He will help with getting your soil tested, and help you decide which cultivars (not species, cultivars) will grow best on your estate. You don’t need a huge amount of space. Even 1,000 trees, which you can grow on a quarter of a hectare, are enough for a small but commercially viable crop. It will take three years from planting to harvesting your first crop.
But it doesn’t end there. While Dylan can be considered a passionate coffee evangelist, he is also practical and realises there is no point in persuading people to grow coffee if there is no market. So that’s the other side of the project – creating and sustaining a market. Starting small, Vida e Caffè is serving a 100% South African blend called the RedBerry Blend. I had some the other day and it is yummmeeeeee. So, if you’re still in doubt, head to your nearest Vida and try it. And give Dylan a shout – this is your chance to get on board this exciting industry close to the beginning.
And, of course, you don’t have to buy into the collective. Just as with wine, you can choose to sell to the co-op or you can produce your own estate coffee.
