BY ABEBE WOLDEGIORGIS
Following the Cup of Excellence testing competition conducted during the last two years, the number of countries which purchased Ethiopia’s coffee has grown from five to thirty-one.
According to Adugna Debela (PhD), Manager of Coffee and Tea Authority, the authority endeavored to enhance Ethiopia’s coffee demand in the foreign market in the last two years through the improvement of the coffee quality with “Cup of Excellence” special coffee test competition brought positive outcome.
Earlier to the beginning of the competition, Ethiopia used to export less than 200 thousand tons of coffee annually but after the competition, the amount of the export rose from 248 thousand to 270 thousand tons of coffee and could earn 907 million Dollar from export in the 2020/21 budget year.
For the last twenty years, there were only five countries used to import Ethiopian coffee products that includes, Saudi Arabia, Germany, USA and Italy. Following the promotion of the product through “Cup of Excellence”, however, the number of countries that import Ethiopian coffee has risen to 31.
As to the director, up to 130 to 160 coffee purchasers participated on online auction during the last two years from 33 countries. As a result, it was possible to increase the market destiny countries of the Ethiopia’s green gold.
The increasing of the number of importing countries of Ethiopia’s coffee inspires exporters to increase the volume of their products. It also motivates growers to enhance the quality of their coffee. The “Cup of Excellence” is intended to attain various objectives among others to unleash the nation’s coffee production, to exploit export and marketing potential and to identify and to reproduce testy coffee specious as well.
According to Adugna, currently, the coffee specious cultivated in Ethiopia is old and planted in 1982. From that time onwards, it is not changed or improved. But now efforts are undergoing to improve the specious through bio technology.
The value chain is cumbersome and vulnerable to the manipulation of brokers which makes farmers to sell their product bellow the market price. As a result, they become demotivated and do not show interest to invest more money in their farm. Rather, they prefer to shift their cultivation from coffee to other cash earning plants like chat (a mild drug) and eucalyptus tree. Hence, to bring back farmers to their coffee cultivation, enabling them to earn the real market price of their products is essential. One of the objectives of the competition for Cup of Excellence is to fill such market gaps by putting out coffee farmers from the disadvantageous position and providing appropriate advantages.
The authority’s report further exacerbated that the farmer who won the first-round competition obtained the chance to sell 300 kilos of coffee in a competitive price and earned 6 million Birr. In the just ended budget year, the quota for supplying coffee to the winners of the competition rose to 1140 kg and the winner earned 16 million Birr which is exceptional in Ethiopia and earning such amount of money by a farmer is amazing.
According to Adugna, the outcome of the competition brought good opportunity to farmers and motivated them to enhance their productivity. Farmers who changed their farms from coffee to other crops came back again and resumed coffee production and gained better result. By now, they organized themselves in cluster forms to achieve more.
39 coffee growing farmers who were participated in the competition during the ended budget year received a recognition certificate and the third-round competition will take place in the coming December 2021.
During the second-round competition conducted in the past budget year, 30 types of coffee were selected by their quality and sold in the international market in an open auction and it was possible to earn 1.8 million Dollar.
On the other development, the Coffee and Tea Authority provided awards and accreditation to traders who scored better accomplishment in coffee, tea and spices exportation in the 2020/21 budget year recently here in Addis Ababa.
The Minister of Agriculture Omer Hussein, the Coffee and Tea Authority Executive Director Adugna Debela (PHD), the Coffee Associations Presidents, the Federal and Regional and the Income Tax officials, Entrepreneurs, suppliers, Unions, Exporters, Officials from the government and none governmental organization attended the event.
The award ceremony took place in two categories that includes exporters those exported coffee, tea and spices and the others those earned more foreign currency in the budget year. In addition, none governmental organizations have played pivotal role in supporting the sector.
After the award ceremony, the Minister of Agriculture Omer Hussein said that in the 2020/21 budget year, the foreign currency earned from coffee export is unprecedented which is the highest that the nation had ever experienced.
The achievement is the outcome of the coordinated efforts exerted by the actors who involved in the value chain, individuals and organizations engaged in production, supply and other none governmental organizations.
He further said that the Cup of Excellence which is conducted for the second time created opportunity to farmers to introduce the Ethiopian coffee to the foreign market. As to the Minister though the nation faced various challenges during the budget year due to natural and man- made problems, it is possible to achieve tremendous outcome in the coffee export.
The Coffee and Tea Authority Executive Director Adugna Debela (PhD) further said that the coordination between various actors in the budget year helped to achieve promising result and such diligence should be strengthened.
Adding, he said that resolving problems witnessed during the budget year in the sector gave way for achieving tremendous results. The introduction of new information system, the undergoing reform, and technology application have also played vital role for the positive outcome.
As it is boldly known, coffee still plays significant role in garnering remarkable foreign currency but due to traditional way of production, extended supply chain and marketing problems, the contribution of the product to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is not as expected of it. Besides, coffee growers are still engaged in small scale farming and earn less than their product’s market price. In order to boost their productivity, modernizing the value chain of coffee product and raising their income is vital and when this happens, they invest more money on their farm.
The Ethiopian Herald September 25/2021
