By Rogers Aghan, February, 14, 2023, Coffee beans producers in Africa fail to earn their rightful share in the global value chain, initiating sustained agitation for increasing production capacity.
While coffee is a profitable product, it has nearly failed to cater to expected returns by producers. The largest producer in Africa is Ethiopia, but the main exporter is; Uganda.
In contrast, the greatest consumers of African cherry reside in the west, the United States of America, Demand is rising in the Middle East and Asia.
While industry stakeholders meet in Kigali, Rwanda this week for the 19th African Fine Coffee Conference and Exhibition slated for February 15 to 17 at Rwandan capital’s convention center, the agenda indicated by the speakers is vivid regarding the intended goals.
Mr. Suarin Nanavati who is in the speaker’s line-up spent his career working in tropical agricultural supply chains. His Ethos Agriculture Organization continues to reinforce the succeeding generation of leaders in coffee sustainability in East Africa.
Mr Lars Khaneri is an advisor and Mr. Sylvio Padilha, an international sales executive. The line-up conspicuously reveals deliberations toward a value-addition agenda for a predominant raw-coffee export continent.
According to Ms Maja Wallengren, a Mexican-based Danish analyst, coffee production in Africa has faced negative impacts from poor social economic development concerns.
“Despite modest output growth registered by countries like Uganda, Ethiopia, and Tanzania in the last decade, low fertilizer use, higher costs, and bad weather have deprived the continent of the opportunity to attain better productivity levels recorded in the past (90s)”, said the analyst. “The world’s supply deficit is also constantly growing.”
According to International Coffee Organization (ICO), Uganda, Africa’s largest exporter of coffee, recorded declines for 12 months consecutively last year.
Cumulative exports declined by 20.25 percent which was due to a recorded 5.63 million bags compared to 6.77 million bags in 2021. The decrease was driven by drought as stated by latest report.
The 1.14 million bags deficit could hardly be compensated by increase recorded in Ivory Coast, Kenya and Tanzania with 69.4 percent to 0.19 million bags, 18.6 percent to 0.34 million bags and 33.2 percent to 0.12 million bags consecutively.
