Black Baza x SDGs — #1 No Poverty

by the Black Baza Team

It would be a very tall claim for Black Baza to make statements about alleviating poverty!

However, it is a fact that many smallholder producers across the world live and cultivate coffee in abject poverty…and it would be unethical as heck for us to procure coffee but ignore the plight that people face on an everyday basis.

At Black Baza, we believe that poverty has to be carefully planned out of systems.

Every year when we gather with growers before the coffee harvest, it is a time for us to plan how to push out financially exploitative practices from coffee supply chains.

A major component of our discussions are around what constitutes a fair price. Often market prices do not always feel fair or feasible to coffee growers.

So, every year the Black Baza price is fixed in consultation with growers…and this has worked to a large extent.

When we started, the price difference between us and local traders was 56%. In 2022, it was 22%.

Why you ask?

Well, it is fascinating how systems work, but us being present in a landscape has put pressure on local traders to also be competitive. We hope that over time, the local market will match our price in entirety.

In addition to ensuring fair pricing, poverty in the regions we work is as much about access to finance. Debt amongst producers is high, this debt is adjust unscrupulously at very high levels of interest. Truthfully, we have not begun to address this as yet — although it is very much in our plan to explore a microfinance and microlending arm to our services.

Miles to go before we sleep on this issue…