VOA标准英语10月-Academic Program Gives Boost to Rwandan Coffee Sa

Last week, the U.S. Agency for International Development (AID) hosted a Higher Education Summit in Rwanda intended to promote development through education by partnering American and African universities. For VOA, Thomas Rippe reports from Kigali that one such partnership¹ has helped Rwandan coffee farmers triple their income in just five years.

This year, for the first time, Rwanda's coffee exports are expected to top $50 million. And it is the farmers who are benefiting the most.

Pascal Khalisa comes from a coffee farming family near the southern Rwandan city of Butare. He says Rwandan coffee used to sell on the "C" market, which is the lowest quality, and the lowest price. But in the past few years Rwanda has moved into the specialty² market, where prices are much higher.

By processing the coffee at special washing stations, Rwanda has moved into the specialty market, where prices are much higher. "In 2001, before we started processing coffee in the washing station, the price of coffee was 120 Rwandan francs, a kilo of parchment. It is equal to around 30 cents a kilo. It is a very bad price. Now the price of parchment coffee, it is 800 Rwandan francs. It is $1, it is like $1.50. So you see there is a very, very good improvement of the price of coffee that means the life of farmers is good now than before," Khalisa said.

Khalisa learned how to increase his coffee profits from a program called Sustaining Partnerships³ to Enhance Rural Enterprise and Agribusiness Development, or SPREAD. Since then he has trained coffee farmers at about 100 washing stations around Rwanda and helped them increase their profits as well.

SPREAD is an innovative⁴ partnership between the National University of Rwanda and a couple of American universities. Program coordinator⁵ Tim Schilling of Texas A&M says the first thing they did was discuss the best way to improve the lives of the farmers. "What we did was, through partnerships with the National University of Rwanda, and then our own university, Texas A&M and Michigan State University, we set about first identifying coffee as a commodity that could raise the income of millions, literally⁶ millions of Rwandans," he said.

Most Rwandan farms are small. Families use their land mostly to feed themselves. There is little left to sell at the market. Coffee is one of the few cash crops. And at 30 cents a kilo it was not generating much cash. But, according to Schilling, cash is exactly what the farmers needed. "Farmers, what we found out, they need money. That is what they are lacking out there. Nobody has got more than like two bucks⁷ in their pocket, if you go out and walk around. And they need money to buy school supplies, health supplies, and to get more diversification⁸ in what they are eating, in their diet," he said.

The SPREAD team knew that coffee could make a difference in the farmers' lives. But to make that difference they needed some help. The got a lot of help from the Rwandan government and from the national coffee board. They also got help from the private sector⁹, from non-profits and of course from the farmers themselves.

Sarah Moten, the chief of education for the AID Office of Sustainable Development in sub-Saharan Africa, says that kind of cooperation is vital. "Not one can do it, not just the U.S. government. And this is why we are talking about partnerships and partnership relationships and development. We are talking about U.S. government, we are talking about foundations, we are talking about the private sector. So all of that coming together so that each one empowers and feeds off the other."

One of the key partners is the National University. Rector Silas Lwakabamba says the program has built the capacity of the university. That capacity can now be applied¹⁰ to other agricultural products besides coffee. "The proposal was built in such a way to show what we have, the capacity we have and the gaps which we need. And that is where we need some sort of assistance and cooperation with some of the U.S. universities. Hopefully it will work because the way coffee has made a lot of difference, we hope some other sectors¹¹ in agriculture, fruits, issues of the cow, and so on, will also make a difference for bigger numbers of the population."

It is not just the universities and farmers who benefit from the program, other jobs are created. One of the most important, and maybe the most fun, is the highly skilled job of cupping. The cuppers taste the coffee to determine the quality. They rank the coffee on aroma¹², taste and finish and give the coffee a score on a scale of 100 points. Coffee scoring over 80 can be sold on the specialty market for a much higher price.

"This coffee, it is from Myungwe. It is good coffee because I give it 88. It has good aroma. When I taste it, it has good acidity¹³, and it is very sweet and clean. It has also a good finish," Lwakabamba said.
　

Rachel Dushimimana (left) with Dr. Tim Schilling

Cuppers like Rachel Dushimimana have to be consistent in their scoring or they risk bad relations with their buyers. That is a serious risk because a lot of the profit increase comes from selling directly to specialty coffee companies in the United States and Europe. Schilling says that relationship makes all the difference.

"Rwanda properly and correctly liberalized their coffee market, unlike Ethiopia and Kenya and some other African countries. Here it is free trade, it is all open. So never before had the farmer actually been able to sell directly to a U.S. buyer. Now he can. And that is why today, in Rwanda, there are over 400,000 small-holder farm families growing coffee that are making over three times, over three times what they made just five years ago in coffee."

People who attended the Higher Education Summit hope to duplicate the success of the SPREAD project, in Rwanda and around Africa. With strong partnerships between universities backed by good governance people like Pascal Khalisa and Rachel Dushimimana can look forward to a brighter future.

1 partnership   

n.合作关系，伙伴关系

参考例句：

• The company has gone into partnership with Swiss Bank Corporation.这家公司已经和瑞士银行公司建立合作关系。
• Martin has taken him into general partnership in his company.马丁已让他成为公司的普通合伙人。

2 specialty   

n.(speciality)特性，特质；专业，专长

参考例句：

• Shell carvings are a specialty of the town.贝雕是该城的特产。
• His specialty is English literature.他的专业是英国文学。

3 partnerships   

n.伙伴关系( partnership的名词复数 )；合伙人身份；合作关系

参考例句：

• Partnerships suffer another major disadvantage: decision-making is shared. 合伙企业的另一主要缺点是决定要由大家来作。 来自英汉非文学 - 政府文件
• It involved selling off limited partnerships. 它涉及到售出有限的合伙权。 来自辞典例句

4 innovative   

adj.革新的，新颖的，富有革新精神的

参考例句：

• Discover an innovative way of marketing.发现一个创新的营销方式。
• He was one of the most creative and innovative engineers of his generation.他是他那代人当中最富创造性与革新精神的工程师之一。

5 coordinator   

n.协调人

参考例句：

• The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, headed by the Emergency Relief Coordinator, coordinates all UN emergency relief. 联合国人道主义事务协调厅在紧急救济协调员领导下，负责协调联合国的所有紧急救济工作。
• How am I supposed to find the client-relations coordinator? 我怎么才能找到客户关系协调员的办公室？

6 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

7 bucks   

n.雄鹿( buck的名词复数 )；钱；（英国十九世纪初的）花花公子；（用于某些表达方式）责任v.（马等）猛然弓背跃起( buck的第三人称单数 )；抵制；猛然震荡；马等尥起后蹄跳跃

参考例句：

• They cost ten bucks. 这些值十元钱。
• They are hunting for bucks. 他们正在猎雄兔。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 diversification   

n.变化，多样化；多种经营

参考例句：

• The seminar was to discuss diversification of agriculture. 该研讨会讨论的是农业多种经营。 来自辞典例句
• Firm diversification is increasingly achieved by the means of takeover and merger. 通过接管和兼并，厂商经营范围日益多样化。 来自辞典例句

9 sector   

n.部门，部分；防御地段，防区；扇形

参考例句：

• The export sector will aid the economic recovery. 出口产业将促进经济复苏。
• The enemy have attacked the British sector.敌人已进攻英国防区。

10 applied   

adj.应用的；v.应用，适用

参考例句：

• She plans to take a course in applied linguistics.她打算学习应用语言学课程。
• This cream is best applied to the face at night.这种乳霜最好晚上擦脸用。

11 sectors   

n.部门( sector的名词复数 )；领域；防御地区；扇形

参考例句：

• Berlin was divided into four sectors after the war. 战后柏林分成了4 个区。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Industry and agriculture are the two important sectors of the national economy. 工业和农业是国民经济的两个重要部门。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

12 aroma   

n.香气，芬芳，芳香

参考例句：

• The whole house was filled with the aroma of coffee.满屋子都是咖啡的香味。
• The air was heavy with the aroma of the paddy fields.稻花飘香。

13 acidity   

n.酸度，酸性

参考例句：

• This plant prefers alkaline soil,though it will readily tolerate some acidity.这种植物在酸性土壤中也能生存，但硷性土壤更加适宜。
• Gastric acidity would not prevent the organism from passing into the gut.胃的酸度不能防止细菌进入肠道。