Ethiopian Coffee Exports Decline

Coffee and Tea Authority announced this week that Ethiopia made $836 million by exporting 175,000 tons of coffee in the last nine months. Sailamariam Gebremidin, Public Relations and Communications Executive for the authority said that it could not reach the target of $1.2 billion for which it was required to export 240,000 tons of coffee in the reported period.

Ethiopia is the 5^th biggest coffee producer and the 9^th biggest exporter globally. Ethiopian Arabica Coffee is special and loved worldwide for its taste. The top coffee buyers of Ethiopia are Saudi Arabia, South Korea, USA, Belgium, Japan, Germany, China, Sudan, UAE, and Italy.

Sailamariam Gebremidin said that Ethiopian coffee farmers have not been getting full benefits from coffee. This is because they have not been able to do much to add more value to the coffee products.

The process of acquisition of coffee by buyers from farmers is very long and complicated. Recently, The Ethiopian Investment Commission (EIC) issued a new directive allowing foreign investors to purchase Ethiopian Coffee directly from the farmers.

The government is educating farmers and encouraging them to sell their coffee directly on the global market so that middlemen and traders could not exploit coffee producers. Reportedly 500 farmers have started selling their coffee directly to both local and international markets.

Moreover,recently Coffee and Tea Authority announced a program called “Cup of Excellence” to help coffee producers make high-quality coffee to sell it at higher prices.

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