ADDIS ABABA – Oromia State Agriculture Bureau announced that it has planned to harvest 11.5 million quintals of coffee from 1.4 million hectares of land this fiscal year.
Bureau Deputy Head Mohammedseni Amin, told the Ethiopian Press Agency (EPA) that the state has cultivated coffee on 2.8 million hectares of land of which the 1.4 million hectares is expected to yield product this fiscal year.
He mentioned that the state also managed to reap some2.1 million quintals of coffee during the past four months. According to him, Oromia State is the major coffee producer covering 70% of the country’s coffee production and revenues.
Coffee is produced in 18 of the 21 zones of the state, he said, adding that coffee initiative has been launched to improve the volume and quality of the product and benefit farmers through creating conducive marketing system.
Over the past four years, the state has made positive changes in increasing production through cultivating coffee on 800,000 hectares of new land while replacing old coffee trees with new ones on 400,000 hectares of land, according to the Deputy Head.
Coffee production is increasing through time, he said, mentioning that the state produced 6.5 and 10.4 million quintals of coffee in 2019 and 2022 respectively while 11.5 million quintals of product is expected at the end of this Ethiopian fiscal year.
As to Mohammedseni, the reformist government paid special attention to benefit coffee farmers and cut the network of manipulators in the market so that the efficiency of the producers has been increased by 400 percent. However, he said, a lot remains to be done to benefit the farmers sustainably.
BY TAMERU REGASA
The Ethiopian Herald December 3/2023
