Authority Highlights Effort to Improve Quality of Coffee in Ethiopia to Boost Forex

Addis Ababa October 8/2024 (ENA) Efforts are underway to improve the quality of coffee production to increase forex earnings from the sector, Ethiopian Coffee and Tea Authority reports.

Deputy Director of the Authority, Shafi Oumer told ENA that various measures have been taken to improve the quality of coffee production in the country over the last three years.

He added that a number of effective programs were implemented to effectively modernize the marketing system, adequately tape the benefits from the commodity and improve export earnings by enhancing value added products.

The Deputy Director said programs were launched on quality coffee production through cluster farming and pruning older coffee trees on 400,000 hectares over the last three years  showing better yields for this year.

This fiscal year, the nation planned to earn 1.8 billion USD by exporting 326, 000 tons of coffee to the global market. He added that a number of mechanisms were introduced to improve productivity but more is to be desired to improve the quality of export coffee, Shafi added. 

Ethiopia exports 13 percent quality premium first level coffee while most of the exports stand at 4th and 5th quality levels which is sold at 50 percent discount on international market denying the nation better revenue that could have been generated by producing higher quality export coffee.

  The Deputy Director General noted that efforts are being made to raise the quality of export coffee from Ethiopia to level 1 and 2 to generate more income for the country. This will help to increase benefits for coffee producers and more export earnings for the nation.

 

The authority is providing capacity building and support to further enhance the level of quality coffee production by classifying coffee producing areas of the country in terms of their quality coffee they produce. 

 

Accordingly, he said that Yirga Chefe, Sidama, Gujji, Arsi, Asebo and Limu produce relatively better quality coffee.

 

Coffee from Keffa, Jimma, Illubabor Zones and Wollega produce level 4 and 5 quality coffee and more efforts are being made to upgrade their level of quality coffee production to higher quality levels, the Deputy Director explained.

 

More extensive efforts are being made since last year to increase the cognitive capacity of stakeholders on quality coffee production and in assisting them to improve their technical operations to ensure quality coffee production and improve yields, Shafi stressed.