Coffee was discovered in Ethiopia. Apparently, a boy tending his goats noticed that they became a bit agitated and excited when they ate the red berries of what is now known as the coffee tree. Centuries later, I am about to embark on a field trip to a place very close to the home-place of coffee to undertake some initial research to inform a project looking at the relationship between ecosystem services (the benefits humans get from the environment) and poverty alleviation in Ethiopian coffee farmers and Ghanaian cocoa farmers.
At the moment my mind feels a bit like a caffeine-stoked goat. I have spent the last few weeks trying to wrap my mind around the concept of poverty. On first reflection, quite a simple notion about lacking the basic ‘things’, food, water, shelter, needed for some minimum quality of life. On deeper reflection, the picture becomes seemingly infinitely more complex; what is sufficient for a quality life, does it depend on your relative position compared to others, and what about non-material components? Is someone who is happy with less material goods richer or poorer than someone with more ‘stuff’, but is miserable? The quality of relationships, feelings of security, meaning, purpose and choice are also clearly part of makes people non-poor. And how on earth do you measure some of these things, and link them to ecosystem services among the coffee farming communities around our field site, Yayu.
These issues, and other abstract academic concepts continue to whizz around my mind. But at the same time, I’m a little preoccupied with more immediate concerns. Will drinking more or less coke settle my rather fragile stomach? Will I be able to get the soil augur (1m+ big metal screw) through customs on the flight to Gambella? Is three packets of shortbread enough for our colleagues in Yayu? Will the internet café be open on a public holiday?
I’m sure over the coming weeks the answers to all these questions will be increasingly apparent. I know there’s no internet in Yayu, so I won’t be blogging about them for at least a month. But I’m excited to get started on learning more about coffee, how it is produced and the people which produce it. And I look forward to sharing some thoughts along the way.
Mark Hirons
Social Science Post-doc, ESPA ECOLIMITS project.
At the moment my mind feels a bit like a caffeine-stoked goat. I have spent the last few weeks trying to wrap my mind around the concept of poverty. On first reflection, quite a simple notion about lacking the basic ‘things’, food, water, shelter, needed for some minimum quality of life. On deeper reflection, the picture becomes seemingly infinitely more complex; what is sufficient for a quality life, does it depend on your relative position compared to others, and what about non-material components? Is someone who is happy with less material goods richer or poorer than someone with more ‘stuff’, but is miserable? The quality of relationships, feelings of security, meaning, purpose and choice are also clearly part of makes people non-poor. And how on earth do you measure some of these things, and link them to ecosystem services among the coffee farming communities around our field site, Yayu.
These issues, and other abstract academic concepts continue to whizz around my mind. But at the same time, I’m a little preoccupied with more immediate concerns. Will drinking more or less coke settle my rather fragile stomach? Will I be able to get the soil augur (1m+ big metal screw) through customs on the flight to Gambella? Is three packets of shortbread enough for our colleagues in Yayu? Will the internet café be open on a public holiday?
I’m sure over the coming weeks the answers to all these questions will be increasingly apparent. I know there’s no internet in Yayu, so I won’t be blogging about them for at least a month. But I’m excited to get started on learning more about coffee, how it is produced and the people which produce it. And I look forward to sharing some thoughts along the way.
Mark Hirons
Social Science Post-doc, ESPA ECOLIMITS project.
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