Tailor made

This month I need double the space Leather International grants me normally. I am playing with the idea of publishing the project text on my website for everybody to enjoy since you can't find it on any of the official sites on the Internet. The first draft of this Limeblast was sent to the author of the draft project proposal, a highly reputed and capable Unido consultant, and he commented: I appreciate you sending me a copy of your ‘Limeblast' column for the November issue. I have read your column before and most of the time I have been in agreement with your views. I am quoting three paragraphs of my foreword and the introduction: ‘This classification is NOT intending to replace the internationally existing and accepted International standards and specification such as ISO 5433 Bovine Wet-blue specification or similar standards. The purpose of this draft is to provide a working tool to the producers, buyers and sellers of wet-blue bovine hides to agree on grading standards that are acceptable to both parties and which can be modified to any suitable grading mix as agreed between the parties concerned. This classification provides clear illustrations of the material grades and specifies the defects that are acceptable in the various grades. It also provides an easy way for teaching the graders and sorters on acceptable quality standards of each grade. These classification documents are intended to serve as models for national bureaus of standards and the industry in preparation of their own standard documentation. This classification can be easily modified to suit customer demanded grading in any combination such as selling only individual grades or any combination thereof such as TR 10/20/20 plus 25/IV and 25/V or any other grade-mix agreed between seller and buyer. ‘It should be noted that this manual: -in order to be applied in a wide variety of countries, does not include classification by weight, size, or shape which are dependent on origin, breed, age, sex etc -can be adapted to ‘commercial' or ‘customer' classification' The draft project proposal presented in Brazil for the consideration of the Unido Panel members which were at the event is aimed at Esalia countries including Kenya, Ethiopia, Malawi, Namibia, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Several of these countries have already benefited from other similar projects and, if this project proposal is accepted, some would benefit now for a third time. Lucky them, or maybe this has nothing to do with luck but with politics! Other countries such as Mauritania were never on any leather improvement map. The idea of the project at hand proposes to promote a standardised quality of semi-processed hides and skins, such as wet-blue and crust. One wonders how one can standardize nine countries (the author of the project expresses his doubt as you have seen above) as each have such different characteristics in terms of animal types, types of defects, environment (which significantly  influences the hide and skin quality), effluent laws, trade laws and trade system. I fail to see how you can put Malawi and Ethiopia on the same line, or Zambia with Sudan, or Namibia with Kenya. Apart from my personal knowledge of five of the targeted countries, just reading the Sauerreport confirms that all nine countries already have a worldwide known and accepted export selection standard in their wet-blue as well as crust (where produced) and in Kenya, Ethiopia and Zambia in fully finished leathers. Teaching the tanneries in these countries how to select their wet-blue and crust which they are already exporting successfully in their own established and apparently internationally accepted selection standard is like hauling water to the sea. It sounds much like the project that was intended to teach salting hides and skins to those who were doing so for years, remember?! As we all know you can't really standardise a selection as each exporter has his own criteria which makes him more or less accepted or appreciated. Also in developed countries there is no such thing as a standard. On the contrary. Each and every producer has his own and that's exactly what creates a healthy and constructive competition for quality improvement. The Tuscan tanning industry in Italy prides itself in having more than 800 tanneries, each of which makes its own product which is demanded by the clientele for just that: individualism of product. Buyers of Bangladeshi crust go to Hazaribagh and select the supplier(s) amongst a hundred or so that most suit(s) their quality and selection demands. Exporters in African countries, like everywhere else in the world, start with the same raw materials of their particular origin. After processing the raw materials it's the individual exporter who matches his price with his quality in conformity with his buyers' demands, which varies from one buyer to the other. That's how each exporter attracts a group of clients who favour his quality and matching price over that of a competitor. It's one of the parameters that define competition. The principle of free trade. Now let us assume for discussion's sake that you can standardise the selection and quality of processed leathers in a given country. You'd flatten the market because producer A would produce exactly the same as producer B. In theory the only competition that would remain is price. Undue standardization, therefore, creates a price battle with no benefits for the exporters, who are currently benefiting from their diversity. In many trades and productions, standards are applied but can this be valid also for the selection of leather? It can be applied to effluent requirements, chemical compositions, tensile strength, true, but the selection of leather? Buyers in our trade know what they buy and sellers demand to be paid for the quality sold. Also in Africa! Too many times the capacities of African entrepreneurs are underestimated badly and without a valid reason! The standard for leather is already there, adapted to the characteristics of our trade dealing with natural resources originating from live animals, who each differ one from another unless cloned and they will still have different scars and insect bites even if living in the same pen. The question is whether our trade needs an all-African wet-blue standard. I dare to say ‘no' because each origin is different and each supplier is different. Apart from the practical and technical considerations, similar attempts to standardise the selection of raw hides and skins have failed as we all know. The trade operates on widely known parameters like hand or machine flayed, trimmed or untrimmed, fleshed or unfleshed, scars, holes, flay cuts and generally accepted weight and footage ranges, all published in the freely available market reports. The CFC/Esalia project, launched in 1999, entitled ‘Grading and Pricing of Raw Hides and Skins by Quality in selected Esalia countries', which the present paper incorrectly says was a success, had similar objectives as this new project. The 1999 project changed nothing in the targeted countries apart from bringing out a useful booklet that shows selection criteria to which, unfortunately, nobody adheres because the trade dictates its own requirements which are based on the day to day reality and not theory. The booklet is an excellent guideline, but definitely not the law. Objectively no results have been achieved in terms of quality or price improvement. Earlier Limeblasts with price statistics on the subject can be referred to. A second similar project in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana and Malawi, as well as a third in West Africa, the latter still under way, show the same predictable disappointing results. CFC and Esalia say their projects for the raw hides and skins quality improvement were a huge success but these assumptions are totally detached from reality, definitely not earthbound and definitely not the African continent! On paper, matters are presented in a way which is not even close to what's going on on the ground! As a long term objective the project presented in Gramado wants the improved quality and grading systems to be certified by Esalia: ‘so that the international trade can rest assured that when purchasing semi-processed leathers from African sources, a uniform quality criteria has been applied.' The same was said for the earlier mentioned 1999 raw hide and skin project where Esalia was to provide inspection and issue a quality certificate, which never materialised other than on paper, the internet and conferences. Reality has proven that nobody is interested. I have asked Esalia how many inspections they have been called in for and how many certificates they have issued. No answer! So why is this proposed again? This apparently makes no sense, but if you read ‘Lords of Poverty' by Graham Hancock it all makes sense. It keeps the air conditioners running, believe you me! I have been told by Unido that ‘people have asked for this project'. I wonder who did? A Botswana tanner told me with some 15/20 witnesses present, that the hide and skin improvement project in his country had trained some 15,000 family fathers, rather than professional butchers and flayers, because like in many African countries small ruminants are home slaughtered. The numbers are there, but to obtain what results? How many good quality goat and sheepskins will these 15,000 men produce in a year? So who asked for this new project that kicks in an open door? The family fathers? The trade? Or the associations who need to ensure their daily bread and butter also for the future? Let's talk money. The project, of which the author commented above that it was a pure theoretical exercise, is planning to spend US$1,890,000 of which US$785,000 is to come ‘in kind' from national governments, national industry associations, national bureaux of standards and the PEA, which stands for Project Executing Agency, Esalia. These inputs are quantified as a whole without a trace of details. For each country (copy and paste) is generically stated ‘extension service personnel for 36 months, support staff (secretary, driver), office space'. Esalia's in-kind contribution, however, is quantified in US$150,000 over a period of 24 months which covers ‘offices to the international experts and support service personnel'. That's US$6,250 per month in a country where a secretary or driver make less than 500 dollars. These $150,000 are not money, but just a price tag on the value of services provided by an existing infrastructure that's already been paid for by others! Hocus-pocus that costs nothing! Now let's return to Planet Earth and look at quality problems in a realistic way. Tanners in Africa have to work with raw materials which are not ideal, though all these raw materials find a home in one way or another either locally or in foreign markets for transformation. Each country and each exporter, whether that's for raw materials, wet-blue, crust or finished leathers have their own established selection standard which is enacted at each and every stage: raw, lime, pickle, wet-blue, crust and finish. This stage selection is where a tanner makes his money and he knows that, even in the countries to which the project is directed. You cannot make a trade that is extremely individualistic become uniform. European leather technologists are covering the requirements of (Ethiopian and other) tanners. An increasing number of Ethiopian tanners produce good quality wet-blue, crust and finished leather, upper, linings and suedes. You can test by sending an email to some Ethiopian (or for that matter Zambian, Kenyan, Namibian) tanner and ask for a quotation and you'll be surprised by what you get! The tanners in the project targeted countries are far ahead of the proposed project from which they are supposed to benefit! But then we all know by now that the project is not designed for them! Ironically the project concept concludes ‘to introduce grading and pricing systems for hides and skins has proven to be difficult in the past. The fact is that local traders prefer to buy unsorted lots and do their own grading in accordance to their customer needs. The same applies to international hide and skin merchants and although they constantly complain about the deteriorating quality, the traders have been reluctant to accept any grading schemes.' In short the author of the project proposal confirms that it is doomed according to past experience. I am right in criticising that money is wasted wholesale, $1.9 million known beforehand to be wasted before the project even starts. Value addition is important and the development of local industries creates jobs and alleviates poverty while a keen eye must be kept to adhere to human and environmental acceptable standards. All very true. But in order to sell products and make money, you have to create industries at whatever scale, not theories and reports. To create an industry you need marketing and financing and a field that is not tipped in one direction. As long as Argentina, Brazil in the Americas and India and Pakistan in Asia or even Morocco in North Africa continue abusing the unfair advantage of export restrictions/taxes, Sub Saharan African countries will have no chance to compete with or without the gimmicks of quality improvement projects. Argentina or Brazil sell grains at prices that others sell splits. Export restrictions/ taxes on raw materials should only be allowed to countries that are lagging behind in development and have a low participation in international trade. If Africa is forced to sell cheaper than those that sell cheap because of unfairness it will never get out of this vicious circle. As long as China dumps cheap shoes in Africa (made with subsidised leather from Argentina, Brazil, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Thailand..) which are cheaper than the Africans can produce today themselves (both the leather and the shoes), African hides and skin exporters and tanners will continue to sell their raw materials and wet-blue as they are doing now, and no quality stamp project will ever change that! What is needed is trade rules for free and fair leather trade which apply to all participants: the industries that produce leather and not associations that produce paper. The truth is that most of Africa's problems are political and macro economic, not industrial. Sam Setter samsetter@limeblast.org