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HAITI / COFFEE EXPORT
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STORY: HAITI / COFFEE EXPORT
TRT: 2.59
SOURCE: MINUSTAH
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: RECENT/ FILE
28-29 AUGUST 2007, THIOTTE
1. Wide shot, coffee farmers in their yard in Thiotte
2. Med shot, coffee beans
3. Med shot, coffee beans
17 JULY 2007, PORT-AU-PRINCE
4. Wide shot, Italian man picks up a coffee bean from a table
5. Med shot, coffee beans on a table
6. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Giovanni Piero Roni, Italian entrepreneur:
"Very good, it's very good the organic coffee from Haiti."
7. Med shot, a room full of farmers and business people sitting and talking
8. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Giovanni Piero Roni, Italian entrepreneur:
"I believe that we are going to take all the coffee produced in Haiti in the south of the country back to Italy, because it is very high quality, like the Italians like it."
28-29 AUGUST 2007, THIOTTE
9. Wide shot, a street in the town of Thiotte
10. Wide shot, a man raking through drying coffee beans
11. Wide shot, man pushing coffee down the husking machine
12. Med shot, hands adjusting the burlap sack to catch the coffee
13. Med shot, coffee being sorted on a sorting machine
14. Tilt down, man pouring beans onto a sorter, pan down to the sorting output of beans into burlap sacks
15. Med shot, man stirring beans on another sorting machine and falling into categories
16. Med shot, man checks the quality of the beans by hand
17. Wide shot, women sorting beans
18. Med shot, hands sorting beans
19. Med shot, woman throwing bad beans away
20. SOUNDBITE (Creole) Pyetor Azor, President COOPCAP farmer's cooperative:
"It permits the small farmer to earn more money, which allows them to send their kids to school, or treat their health problems in a hospital, or just resolve everyday problems. Even if it is still satisfy all our needs 100%, selling coffee on the international market has many, many benefits for the small farmer."
17 JULY 2007, PORT-AU-PRINCE
21. Wide shot, people sitting down for coffee
22. SOUNDBITE (French) Marcel Duret, Former Haitian Ambassador to Japan and coffee marketing consultant:
"Haitian coffee is increasingly considered "gourmet" or specialty coffee. It is a very high quality coffee, which gets a high price on the market, relative to ordinary or industrial grade coffee."
23. Med shot, group serving coffee
24. Med shot, group serving coffee, with exclamations in Spanish
Small farmers in Thiotte, who make their living from coffee. This coffee is grown at higher altitudes, and is almost ready for picking. It will be made into a specialty blend called "Haitian blue". And if it gets a good price, it will give the community a brighter future.
Haitian Blue is becoming increasingly popular on the international market.
UPSOUND (Spanish)
"Very good, it's very good the organic coffee from Haiti."
This importer has traveled all the way from Italy, to meet farmers from COOPCAB, a farmers' cooperative from Thiotte. They are negotiating a price, based on the quality of the coffee COOPCAB can produce.
SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Giovanni Piero Roni, Italian entrepreneur:
"I believe that we are going to take all the coffee produced in Haiti in the south of the country back to Italy, because it is very high quality, like the Italians like it."
Two thousand seven hundred farmers belong to COOPCAB. At their processing center, they prepare 100,000 kilos of coffee a year, which they export to countries like Japan, the US, France, and now Italy.
The coffee arrives at the center in its raw form. It spends days drying in the sun, then in a matter of minutes, it gets husked by machine.
Other machines sort the beans by size, pick out the defective ones, and then reclassify them according to their weight.
Getting the best quality of bean is a top priority, and the technicians are constantly monitoring this process. While machines do most of the work, it is the human eye that that gives the coffee it's quality.
These women spend hours going bean by bean, separating out any grains of inferior color or shape. Better quality means more profits. Belonging to a cooperative means small farmers can make five to ten times as much money.
SOUNDBITE (Creole) Pyetor Azor, President COOPCAP farmer's cooperative:
"It permits the small farmer to earn more money, which allows them to send their kids to school, or treat their health problems in a hospital, or just resolve everyday problems. Even if it is still satisfy all our needs 100%, selling coffee on the international market has many, many benefits for the small farmer."
COOPCAB's coffee is becoming known on world markets for its rich aroma and slightly spicy taste.
SOUNDBITE (French) Marcel Duret, Former Haitian Ambassador to Japan and coffee marketing consultant:
"Haitian coffee is increasingly considered "gourmet" or specialty coffee. It is a very high quality coffee, which gets a high price on the market, relative to ordinary or industrial grade coffee."
For coffee lovers, a taste test is a real treat.
With the first round of negotiations finished, the farmers and the Italians enjoy tasting the coffee from Thiotte together. They are just about to make their first purchase.