Pubdate: Fri, 27 Dec 2002 Source: Sun News (Myrtle Beach, SC) Copyright: 2002 Sun Publishing Co. Contact: http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/mld/sunnews/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/987 Author: Sudarsan Raghavan, Washington Bureau ETHIOPIANS LEAVE COFFEE FOR NARCOTIC BEDESA, Ethiopia -- Usmani Ali has given up on coffee and turned to growing something more profitable: khat, a leafy narcotic. During previous droughts like the one now gripping the country, the global coffee market helped Ali, 28, stave off starvation. He sold his prized crop to traders, who paid him decent prices and sold his coffee to American and European companies. But today there's too much coffee in the world, and prices are at 30-year lows. While premium Ethiopian coffees fetch up to $12 a pound in the United States, Ethiopia's farmers get only 15 cents for it. That's not enough to cover Ali's costs. So he's turned to khat, a leafy cash crop that is chewed legally by millions of people in the Horn of Africa and Middle East. In the United States and Britain, where it is illegal, khat fetches as much as $200 a pound. "Khat is much better than coffee," said Ali, standing next to his family's last patch of coffee trees. The red coffee berries are rotting from a drought-related pest because Ali can no longer afford pesticide. Down the hill are rows of green khat bushes glistening in the sun. The narcotic is drought- and pest-resistant. It can grow on less water and in less time than coffee. And when chewed for a long time, khat has another powerful draw: It makes people feel less hungry. "A person can stay for two days without eating," says Muhammed Ali, 39, Usmani's brother. "But then you fall down." Ethiopian officials say khat production is hurting the country's economy because it is not taxed. By contrast, coffee was Ethiopia's prime source of hard currency. Hard currency will be needed to pay for imported food next year when aid workers are predicting that as many as 11 million Ethiopians could face starvation. According to Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, khat also has very serious social implications. Insomnia and impotence are among the main side effects, he said, and studies have shown a rise in violence. Then, there's the effect on the labor force. "If you're stoned all afternoon, you're not doing much," said Alex Jones, emergency humanitarian coordinator in West Hararghe for the Atlanta-based relief agency CARE. But for men like Usmani Ali, khat is a vital lifeline. He doesn't need Western food aid. He lives in a house with a corrugated iron sheet roof, a sign of affluence here. His four children are healthy. And clean clothes hang from a clothesline. "I buy grains with the money from khat," he said. An estimated 75 percent of all coffee farmers in the highlands of Hararghe, home to the aromatic Harar coffee, have either uprooted coffee trees to plant khat or are growing both, said Tadesse Meskela, general manager of the Oromiya Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union in the capital, Addis Ababa. - --- MAP posted-by: Jackl