Kenya’s notorious for it’s coffee export infrastructure. The government-regulated grading and auctioning have been accused of numbers of injustices towards the farmers it’s supposed to benefit. Recently, a so-called Second Window opened for growers to allow them to sell directly to brokers and green-coffee buyers. Intelli’s Thunguri & Ndaroini lots from the past season were among the first coffees purchased under the new legislation.

Recently, Ethiopian governmental officials enacted legislation to block farmers from doing this, representing a change of philosophy in the traditionally more open market. While small farmers may not yet be at risk, and smaller export groups and buyers can still find producers who will sell their beans, a number of large farms are being forced into a large pool where homogenization on massive scales will “brand” coffees by their region (presumably for marketability to large buyers like Starbucks). This has caused major geek-freak-outs amongst the specialty community, who are generally concerned about the preservation of some of the most unique and recognizable representations of innate indigenous diversity.

Better explanations of the situation can be found in this discussion on coffeed.