Jacques
Op de Laak is a man who enjoys his coffee. He drinks four to
five cups of pure Arabica coffee every day, but Jacques’
interest in coffee goes much further than just drinking it. He
is a man who has spent 35 years in search of the perfect coffee
bean. In fact, it’s his life’s work.
Jacques was born in Holland during WWII. His
father was a teacher who worked day and night (but not every
night!) to support his family of 12 children, with Jacques
fourth from the top. His father passed on to his children the
gift of education, saying, “With 12 children I cannot give you
money - but I can give you education.”
Jacques was a middle of the road student, but
his father pushed him towards university to study Social
Geography and Anthropology; however, after 18 months Jacques
gave up. The cloistered halls of academia were not for him, but
it was National Army service that was waiting, Jacques spending
the next two years in the cavalry.
While riding his fertilizer producer, he had
heard about the College of Tropical Agriculture in Holland and
he entered. “It was the ‘tropical’ part of it. I wanted to
see the tropics. I even used to spend my time looking through
atlases to get a glimpse of the outside world.”
He emerged three years later with his B.Sc.
in Agriculture and a desire to visit the former Dutch East
Indies, now Indonesia, the country from which one of his tutors
had come.
He was almost immediately successful, given
an opportunity for work in Timor, but the coup ended that
chance. He decided in the interim that he should become more
proficient in English and went to Ireland. I raised my eyebrows
at this and Jacques laughed, but we did not pursue it.
However, by 1967 he was accepted for a
position in Indonesia as an agricultural advisor, where he spent
the next three years on various agricultural projects covering
fruit trees, maize, rice, vegetables and coffee in most parts of
Indonesian Timor. He was asked to extend his contract, but
declined, telling me, “I wasn’t going to bury myself
there!”
He returned to Holland and met a girl from
his own village, and married a kindred spirit who was also
excited by travel and the tropics. A chance meeting with someone
who turned down a posting in Kenya resulted in Jacques and his
wife heading to Africa to take that appointment. The next
fifteen years were spent in various places in Kenya. “It was a
marvellous period, probably one of the best times of our lives.
It was exhilarating. I still enjoy watching African wildlife on
TV.”
During that time he was responsible for
research into the two main problems with commercial Arabica
coffee growing. These were Coffee Berry Disease and Coffee Leaf
Rust, and while these could be kept in check with fungicides, by
selective breeding Jacques reduced the costs of production by
35%. By now his studies into coffee covered agronomy,
horticulture, irrigation technology, crop rotations and
agricultural extensions. Jacques was becoming one of the most
experienced field workers, able to pass on the practicalities of
modern agricultural methods to traditional farmers in Kenya.
These practical classes even covered bookkeeping and how to
manage credit facilities. This was true practical assistance in
a developing country.
His projects completed, he returned to
Holland to see where he could go to next - as long as it was
somewhere in the tropics! A surprise vacancy came up in tropical
Thailand. They needed a coffee researcher here. While Jacques
was an experienced practical worker in the field, he did not
consider himself a researcher, but despite this, he was offered
the post, which he took, first studying Thai for two months in
Holland. For Jacques who had a flair for languages, this was
just another language he could add to his proficiency in
English, German, Indonesian, French, Kiswahili and Spanish.
The next nine years were spent mainly in
Thailand, working in the Highland Coffee and Research and
Development Centre in Chiang Mai, which itself moved under the
umbrella of Chiang Mai University. He was responsible for more
than 40 research projects, and was instrumental in the
introduction of disease resistant Arabica coffee as an
alternative crop to opium in the highlands of Thailand, Burma
and Laos. There he forged links with many UN backed groups,
which in turn brought him to the attention of many overseas
organizations.
While Chiang Mai was his base, he made
several advisory missions around the world, including Papua New
Guinea, Portugal, Indonesia, Brazil, Costa Rica, returning to
Kenya, Laos and India.
In 1993 he took study leave for two years,
but the boy with the love of geography needed to find tropical
climes again. This came as a posting to Ethiopia as an
agricultural advisor for poor communities in that poorest of
poor countries. For Jacques it was an opportunity to go to where
the word ‘coffee’ came from, known as ‘kaffa’ in
Ethiopia.
This contract over, he returned to Holland
and the all-pervading cold. There was nothing offering that he
wanted, so he asked the Dutch government if he could return to
tropical Thailand, to Chiang Mai, and see what opportunities
there might be here. They agreed and Jacques and his wife were
on the next plane, “We were very happy to be back!”
Since his return he has made numerous field
trips to Laos, Vietnam and Burma, was the speaker and resource
person at the 7th International Coffee Conference and is the
senior coffee advisor to the Food and Agriculture
Organization’s projects in Burma and Vietnam.
Now having just entered his 6th cycle, he
remains as enthusiastic as ever about his work and coffee
growing. “My work is my hobby,” he says, “Coffee is such a
thrilling and interesting experience.”
So next time you have that morning coffee
‘hit’, please remember it needed someone like Jacques to
make it happen!
