Fair Pricing for Ethiopian Coffee

The Problem: Coffee from Ethiopia and other African countries are unable to compete for quality, reputation, or value on international markets. Requirements for traceability are almost impossible to implement because of distance, size of production, and lack of access to tools to track the required information. Currently, Ethiopian coffee is protected by Trademark Registration (TR), but Geographical Indicator or Geographical Origin information are critical to international recognition and value of the coffee.

Solution: A block chain system can safely track the coffees' information from its growing location through the long process until it gets to the customer`s hand. This system would provide information on Coffee Geographical Origin, needed for coffee traceability as well as certifications for social equality, fair price, sustainability and environmental responsibility. This would achieve the implementation of a healthy coffee philosophy. This pioneering system would overturn obstacles to opportunity in the African coffee world, benefitting both coffee farmers and helping Ethiopia's economy.

Vision: It is our responsibility to implement technological tools to increase environmental sustainability and competitiveness for essential farm products and eliminate fake processes in Ethiopia.

The Plan

First year: Design, build and implement two coexisting blockchain platforms for coffee in the Yirgacheffe coffee region. Work has already been started with coffee farmers and exporters. They are highly motivated to attain these sustainable certifications.

The rapid introduction of this technology would avoid the learning loop that other coffee countries have gone through as far as environmental impact, and would quickly increase the market value Ethiopian coffee. We would work on the official integration of those tools for national and international coffee politics. This project would also show other African coffee countries how to attain Intellectual property protection (IP) and geographical indication (GI)

Two teams would operate the project: Pipa`s traceability team would manage the direction, co-design, and field work, and a Developer Team would provide the blockchain infrastructure.

11/2021 to 6/2022: Design and building of blockchain infrastructure.

4/2022 to 9/2022:  Pipa`s traceability team would focus on field and knocking doors to offer farmers, cooperatives and certification entities the tools to start working with during and after the next harvesting season.

9/2022 to 11/2022: During harvesting time, we will monitor participation and draw conclusions from the data, to make projections for the next 2 years

Long term The success of this system would lead to its implementation throughout the country as a business line for private and public interests. A second stage would expand the project to the rest of the coffee regions in Ethiopia (2023-2024)

Budget:

11/2022 to 11/2023 Total 60,000 USD

Traceability Team : 25000

Logistics: 10000

Travel Expenses: 10000

Specialist Support: 15000

Developers Team: 30000

Long term plan/sustainability

This project's sustainability is endless as we expand the network that would produce its reach: coffee producers, environmental activists, entrepreneurs, enthusiastic consumers.

The project will lead the way for a new coffee paradigm in Africa and its emerging economies.