A young coffee buyer in the remote Indagen village of Komba Local Level Government (LLG) area in Kabwum, Morobe Province is helping to buy dried coffee beans from local farmers despite the low profit margin.
28-year-old Jonathan Dian has been in this business since 2015.
“There is no proper road or access to move coffee out so small-scale buyers in the village, like me, we help by buying their coffee and at the same time, pay men to carry the coffee bags to wherever the pickup point is,” said Jonathan.
On average, Jonathan hires three carriers for K20 each to move his coffee bags from Indagen to Konge, which is a three-hour walk.
Sometimes, he hires a group for K100 to K300 per load, so they can transport the coffee bags to the main road at Konge that leads to Kabwum Station and Wasu.
“Dry coffee bean price in the village currently is between K1 to K1.50 per kilogram so I buy coffee at this price. We don’t get good profit.”
Since Dian does not have resources like vehicles, money or proper business documents to move the coffee bags to bigger markets out of his village, he sells them to businesspersons and well-established coffee buyers in Kabwum for K1.80 to K2 per kilogram.
From there, they take the coffee bags to Lae to resell.
Dian called on the Coffee Industry Corporation (CIC) to set better prices for coffee so people in rural areas can get more from their produce.
He currently spends K2,000 to buy coffee and earns around K2,600 or K2,700 after selling them.
He has never made a profit above K1,000 but continues to buy from his people, who are mostly vulnerable members of the community, such as the elderly, widows and widowers, and single mothers.
Dian started his business in 2015 after he could not continue his Grade Nine at the Bumayong Lutheran Secondary School in Lae due to a shortage of school fees.