Middlemen are the invisible links in African agriculture

AS A CHILD Sowedi Lwanga used to collect and sell the loose coffee that had fallen outside the hulling factory where he lived in Mityana, central Uganda. He started a trading business when he was still in secondary school. Coffee is a “common man’s charter”, he says. “You jump out from your bed, you [pick up] your weighing scales and money, and you go.” He has come a long way: last year he bought and processed 27 tonnes of coffee, which he sold to an exporter.Middlemen like Mr Lwanga are the human infrastructure of African economies. Big cash crops, such as coffee, cocoa and cashew nuts, are grown on small, scattered farms, often far from any tarmac. Somehow they must reach the warehouses of a few giant companies, before being shipped abroad. By solving this conundrum, middlemen help turn the harvest of a million gardens into cappuccinos and chocolate bars enjoyed thousands of miles away.