VOA慢速英語:In Eastern DRC, Ex-Fighters Make a New Life With Coffee

[00:00.00]From VOA Learning English, [00:02.85]this is the Agriculture Report in Special English. [00:07.25]A cooperative in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo [00:12.06]is giving Congolese coffee exports a fresh start. [00:17.17]The co-op is trying to do the same for former rebels and soldiers. [00:23.18]They are encouraged to make a better and safer living from coffee. [00:28.98]The co-op is called Sopacdi. [00:32.09]Its headquarters are in Minova, [00:35.36]a fast-growing town along Lake Kivu. [00:38.71]Many people trying to escape conflict have moved there. [00:43.31]The co-op began in two thousand three. [00:46.82]Last year Sopacdi began selling coffee in British stores. [00:51.88]It had help from a British nongovernmental organization called TWIN [00:58.04]and the British development agency. [01:00.15]TWIN helps producers in developing countries [01:03.87]sell to supermarket operators in the West. [01:07.87]Joachim Munganga is the president of the co-op. [01:14.17]He says getting a "fair trade" certificate for Congolese coffee took two years. [01:20.55]The group had to meet requirements involving respect for the environment [01:25.58]and workers' contracts. [01:27.94]This year the co-op won an organic certificate [01:31.82]and it now has seven buyers in Europe, the United States and Japan. [01:37.84]The purpose of the co-op is not simply to produce coffee. [01:42.78]Joachim Munganga says the founders of Sopacdi [01:48.04]were trying to find ways to help resolve ethnic conflicts in the area. [01:54.25]So they brought coffee producers together [01:57.76]and persuaded them to form a co-op. [02:01.56]Members of rival ethnic communities now work together [02:06.97]at the co-op's different offices. [02:09.52]Sopacdi has three thousand six hundred members. [02:14.22]They all work for themselves. [02:17.12]But they also work together [02:19.79]to elect leaders and promote common interests. [02:24.00]John Buchugwazi is one of the leaders of the co-op. [02:28.70]He says the co-op has shown its members [02:32.11]how to get better yields and improve quality. [02:36.21]Coffee growers also needed better access to markets. [02:41.22]Smugglers were taking most of the coffee from the area at night [02:46.11]across Lake Kivu to Rwanda. [02:49.82]Many of the smugglers drowned in the sudden storms that develop on the lake. [02:55.17]With the co-op, there are trucks [02:58.57]that take the coffee to Sopacdi's own washing station. [03:02.78]There a machine depulps or removes the outer flesh the coffee berries [03:09.82]that contain the beans. [03:11.82]Doing this process by hand would take a long time [03:16.38]and can mean a loss of freshness. [03:19.14]But the co-op president says [03:21.64]the DRC's 12% export taxs on coffee still invite smuggling. [03:28.49]Rewanda's tax is 1%. [03:31.20]About 160 people work at the washing station. [03:36.25]Many were fighters. [03:38.40]This former rebel says he is very happy with his new job. [03:45.80]He now spends his nights in a house, instead of sleeping in the forest.

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