Growing up in Nairobi, it took only a 20-minute ride to visit the vast coffee farms in areas like Kiambu, Limuru, and others nearby areas. These farms were located less than 10 kilometers from the city center, many of them close to the edge of the Aberdare mountain ranges. In the mid-1990s, when I was in primary school, we were taught that Kenya was a leader in coffee and tea production, and I used to consume coffee almost daily.
Then, all of a sudden, it seemed like one scandal after another emerged—farmers were not being paid, and the industry became overrun by brokers and middlemen. This meant local farmers were cut off from selling their coffee at competitive market rates and instead had to deal with corrupt government officials and brokers.
So, what did the farmers do? Most abandoned coffee farming and converted their farms into prime real estate. Remember, these farms were near the mountain slopes, making the land highly valuable. These new houses became popular with the UN and foreign nationals from Europe and the US, who sought refuge from Nairobi’s “heat.”
As a result, more coffee farms were converted into real estate, and today these areas feature some of the most expensive properties in Kenya. For instance, $200,000 would now be considered cheap for a three-bedroom apartment.
> Most abandoned coffee farming and converted their farms into prime real estate
This is happening in Vietnam as well (2nd largest coffee producer in the world).
Coffee margins are low because there are too many farmers and too few bulk purchasers, so most fermers have either switched to higher value nuts (eg. Macadamia) or sold the land off to tourism developers who can make a "Glam-Camping" experience for Korean, Japanese, or Thai tourists.
Robusta is the primary choice across much of Asia. Vietnamese are heavy coffee consumers (so the domestic market is strong) and VNese coffee is cost-competitive in Japan and SK due to FTAs.
Furthermore, for historical reasons Robusta cultivars tend to be very popular across Asia (just like the Phin or Filter Coffee - the metal apparatus for drip coffee is part of the Colonial Era exchange across Asia - or chicory coffee mix)
It's just about money. Too many farmers entered the coffee industry in the 1990s and 2000s as it was the cash crop of choice back then, and there are a handful of larger wholesalers who cornered purchasing.
Nuts make way more money than coffee because of better margins and lower cost of inputs. A lot of this is also driven by Food Processors, as VN cornered the nut processing market (eg. most nuts from sub-Saharan countries like Côte d'Ivoire get exported to VN for processing) so there was excess capacity.
> most nuts from sub-Saharan countries like Côte d'Ivoire get exported to VN for processing
Wow, that is crazy to think about. Exporting from one developing country to another -- on the other side of the planet, no less! Why can't Côte d'Ivoire do the processing themselves? That sounds like a great business opportunity. GDP per capita is about 30% lower in Côte d'Ivoire, so labour costs might also be cheaper.
> Why can't Côte d'Ivoire do the processing themselves?
Capital.
Historically, Asian LDCs like Vietnam and Cambodia have had access to Japanese and Korean development loans and grants which allowed for businesses to build and innovate.
Most Sub-Saharan economies did not have those kinds of capital markets.
Depending on where you are in Africa, the Gulf, Turkey, India, and China have stepped in to fill the capital gap, but they tend to be much more extractive in their terms.
this was likely due to the French whose coffee was traditionally robusta from their African territories, they almost certainly introduced coffee to Vietnam when they held it.
> Most abandoned coffee farming and converted their farms into prime real estate.
So they made more money by selling their farm land, instead of being a farmer? That sounds like a good trade to me. This is pretty normal process in all highly developed countries.
Related: What do you think Silicon Valley and Los Angeles Valley looked like 100 years ago? Lots of fruit farms. Today? Housing and office buildings -- all considered prime real estate. Once farming became less valuable than the land, most farmers sold.
> Nairobi’s “heat.”
Can you explain why you put "heat" in quotes? Is this intended to be sarcastic?
> So they made more money by selling their farm land, instead of being a farmer? That sounds like a good trade to me
It's a great trade for an individual who wants to get rich. It's a potential disaster for a country whose 3rd biggest export is the thing nobody wants to do now.
> So they made more money by selling their farm land, instead of being a farmer? That sounds like a good trade to me. This is pretty normal process in all highly developed countries.
The reasons and conditions are totally different in economies like those in Africa that are setup for wealth extraction vs. America where they are setup for wealth generation. The book ‘why nations fail’ does a great job of explaining this.
The temperature in Nairobi ranges from 15°C to 28°C, and it very rarely exceeds 30°C. Theres other parts of Kenya where the temp is 35c+. In the areas where the coffee farms once thrived—now converted into prime real estate—the temperature ranges from 10°C to 25°C. These areas were originally tropical forests before being cleared for coffee farming and later developed into housing estates.
There is still significant tree cover, which helps regulate the temperature, making these areas particularly attractive to foreign nationals.
There's a place where something similar happened (for different reasons). Some of the best farming from rich soil and a pleasant climate. Farming and fruit orchards filled the valley with prosperous plant growth. But then computer people took over and silicon valley is now just high-priced real estate and no growing.
Africa 2020 - 2029 predictions
The last 10 years have seen great changes in Africa with a lot of them being a direct cause of tech adoption and more people looking for efficient ways to do business and improve quality of life. Looking back, they look subtle and not as drastic as we would imagine but I think the next 10yrs is when greater changes are going to happen.
Technology and Privacy
- Rise of quality internet speeds. We have had slow jumps from 3g to 4g but the jump to 5g will be the first meaningful change in relation to internet speeds. It will be like jumping from 2g straight to 5g. This is dependent on telcos companies realising more people want good services.
- Airtel exiting a few African countries. At least for Kenya, am calling it on Airtel quitting the market and we will have new entrants who will either buy airtel or new telcos will enter the scene.
- Online e-commerce stores like Jumia will struggle. For Jumia specifically, I see them exiting or being bought with another company.
- Increase in logistics companies will benefit more from intra-trade.
- Apple will make its first big push in Africa. Having almost hit saturation point in china and India, it will be time for them to push into the African market launching official stores, introducing hackathons and pushing MacOs into the scene through promoting local made apps/content.
- Open source will be adopted more. Moving away from walled gardens like chrome in favour of firefox and even Linux gaining more users. A result of mistrust with current state of privacy.
- Twitter will pivot, die or be bought
- An African social media company will displace Facebook in Africa just like in Russia and China. If not, most countries will have their own thing going.
- Self driving cars won’t enter the African scene. Maybe the next decade. Major infrastructure investments still need to be done to catchup. This will also affect other autonomous things like drones.
- The decade of African unicorns (private companies worth a billion dollars)
- Intentional companies like uber, glovo, amazon, KFC, etc will see a decline as people start adopting local/African centric companies.
- Fin tech startups are a bubble that will burst and die down this decade.
- More foreigners will continue launching in Africa with massive financial backing but will have to move entire operations within the continent.
- More African companies will let employees work from home
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- Surveillance in Africa will take off. Street cameras, DNA, online, tracking of phone calls and chats. This will be pushed more by China and human rights problems will still be prevalent.
- Africa will have the biggest cyber security risks with even more people adopting tech.
- Blockchain will finally become useful as governments adopt it to increase transparency and efficiency.
- One stable coin/ crypto currency will gain adoption for regional and intentional transfers displacing banks and mobile money.
- Mobile money will still be huge but push from banks will mean more people will be banking and using mobile banking apps for transfers with service like Pesalink in Kenya gaining a lot of traction. Banks partnering might develop the tool for the point above this.
- The dot com generation (born 1980 onwards according to me) will lead push in funding local startups with African venture capital companies starting up.
Politics and economy
- All dictators will fall
- Younger presidents will be elected (below 60yrs) in more counties
- Rwanda will be in top 3 biggest economies in Africa by the end of the decade
- Urban rural migration will reverse with more developments in outside towns
- Like the rest of the world, Artificial intelligence use like deep fakes and fake news will wreck havoc and continue to be a big problem in politics especially during elections.
- Airplane ticket prices will become affordable especially intentional to other African counties.
- Moving around Africa will be flawless with more countries doing away with visas with East Africa becoming the single biggest market. This will face stiff competition with west African countries moving to single currency. I don’t think East Africa will push for single currency anytime soon.
- A few African countries will sink into recession as they struggle to payback China. Infrastructure growth will slow down and we might see the return of the West into Africa as they try to gain favour with new projects
- We will see less Made in China and more Made in (insert African country)
- More international companies will transfer their ‘low level’ work force like companies into Africa Ethiopia as a leading example.
Religion & culture
- More Africans will shun religion with traditional and indigenous tribes being on their death bed. This might also lead to radicalised and extremist groups continuing to cause terrorism but eventually it will die down maybe in the next decade
- Islam will be the only religion with an increase in followers by the end of the decade
- FGM will be illegal in the entire continent
- Same as early child marriages.
Energy and climate change
- Increase in energy demands means alternative green energy will be main focus for African countries to keep up with energy demands. We will even see more data centres being setup in more African counties to serve more localised content.
- I wont rule out African countries adopting old energy sources like coal. General thinking is we have had the least impact in effects of climate change. Other nations got rich through coal and oil. Why not us? I dont support the argument but it can’t be ruled out.
- A new push for nuclear energy and at least 1 country joining the nuclear arms race.
- Plastic bags will be banned in the entire continent.
Tourism & entertainment
- With climate change destroying more national parks, African countries will have to find new ways to sustain their economies away from tourism which might mean rise of theme/amusement parks. Maybe Disney ️
- We will see more african artists breaking into the intentional scene and having the first African artist with a song with over a billion views in YouTube.
- African made movies will enter the international scene doing world premieres.
- E-sports will be huge with growing global trends.
Location: Nairobi, Kenya
Remote: Yes
Willing to relocate: yes.
Technologies: Adobe xd, figma, adobe premiere pro and after effects.
Resume: diaznash.com
I do web and app UI/UX designs and proficient in adobe premiere pro and da vinci resolve to create content. I can also do wyswig site builders like wordpress, magento, squarespace, etc. currently working on a tech channel with a few videos up.
Email: diaznash@gmail.com
That sounds like bad advice which has been used to stigmatise/marginalise disabled people and people suffering from chronic diseases over the years. Imagine telling Stephen Hawkins that. Imagine living your life only focused about your health and never trying to achieve your dreams. That is worse than any sickness IMO. Yes they may be at a disadvantage, working slower with many distractions but then a solid idea eventually requires a team.
I am actually speaking from personal experience as an ex-founder with a disability. My disability didn't stop me from founding a company (nor did it stop me from becoming a state championship athlete and being one of the first from my hometown to ever become admitted into a top-10 university), but an unrelated chronic health problem kept me from being as productive as I needed to in order to succeed in business.
A lot of health conditions can be worsened by overwork (remember Sam Altman got scurvy while building Loopt?), and founding a startup is one of the hardest things you could possibly do. I know plenty of otherwise healthy people who ended up damaging themselves while trying to start companies.
To this day, I'm still recovering. Overworking and putting yourself in overly-stressful situations is UNHEALTHY, full stop. I made necessary trade-offs (as any sensible founder would) by eating cheaper food, skipping doctors' visits, cutting back on sleep, falling behind on exercising, and getting bargain basement health insurance. In retrospect, I definitely regret it.
It's a bit offensive to me that you are on here virtue signaling as some champion of anti-able-ism even though you are likely perfectly able yourself.
Regarding your point: That does not sound like an issue inherent to startups, but more like an issue of bad prioritizing. Why does an start-up have to be all-or-nothing? Robert Graham advocates this way of going in, but there are plenty successfull examples of people keeping it low out there too.
Yes, stress is a killer, and startups are often more stressfull than other jobs - but most of the effects of stress depend on how on is dealing with it. And that can be trained.
Wow! And after doing wordpress for a while, I can't imagine getting even close to that. Are you hiring or looking for someone to throw some projects his way. I can be of help.
Unfortunately no. I’m a solo operator for many reasons, and have decided that being responsible for the work of others just isn’t for me. Any referrals I do make tend to be ones where there’s a clean break, and the referral is local.
While piracy happens all over including hot-spots such as the Gulf of Guinea and the strait of Malacca, the only piracy that has received significant news coverage in Western media is that centered around Somalia.
As a guy who has used the Samsung Gear VR on many occasions, and also the Google cardboard from the early days, I have always believed VR is for commercial use while AR is what will be used by everybody else. Seating at home and looking around gets tiring pretty quickly, but that wont be the case in a commercial setup. My startup is focusing on this but I want to use several gear VR devices all in sync, which can make it possible, lets say, to showcase a real estate property in a real estate exhibition, or showcase tourism features like the great wilder beast migration (am a Kenyan) to a group of tourists on behalf of a touring firm. That can extend to even shooting weddings in 360 degrees, etc. I also have focus in using 360 degrees pictures and videos that can be somehow interactive (Not planning on starting a war on how 360 isn't VR) Anyway, now I just have to overcome trying to fund it and the depression of not being able to yet.
Hi. For starters, it would make more sense to be more specific which African country you are talking about. Your approach in Morocco would be totally different from let's say Kenya, where I am located. In Kenya, several schools have computer labs and they all run windows. Am yet to come across any other OS. For a fact, Linux has a better chance of working out too than MacOS. Any hardware is fine. Have in mind, this machines will be used by so many kids on a daily basis and therefore, durability is key. Good core i3 Dell desktops tend to be durable with good build quality. Heavy duty keyboards can be considered as well as old school wired mouse. 17 or 19 inch widescreen monitors will do. In regards to softwares, Microsoft is king here and therefore the office suite is perfect. You can also consider having a software that wipes everything from the computer at every reboot. What's the electricity situation in the location? Yeap! Frequent blackouts can be a setback. You can consider solar, with an inverter, for those times. In regards to charges, for outside members, billing can be done per minute...again, which country? Anyway, I hope that helps and good luck.
Several things around VR. Creating 360 degrees content that can be viewed using HMDs. Creating a website that is a directory of any fun place that people can go to. I though of this after I realized I hardly have any fun and I couldn't get one place that had a list of outdoor activities. The directory can be monetized by doing 360 photography and videos for all the listed businesses, e.g bungee jumping, safari walks, etc. And finally, merging all that by creating a commercial vr showcase. This will be done by syncing several devices (preferably samsung gear vrs because of quality) and use this to do product showcases and demos at events and trade fairs. Yeah! Its a lot and maybe am getting over my head with how much impact VR can be. I'd love to hear thoughts. My location is Kenya (Africa) by the way. So all this is completely very new in the market and experimental and am in it full time. Zero competitors.
