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“This year we will be exporting
32,000 bags (60-kilograms) and selling
8,000 bags in the local market while in its
entire history the Bebeka estate had only
managed to produce 16,000 bags for both
the local and foreign market,” said Jemal
Ahmed, CEO of the MIDROC Group which
owns Horizon Plantations coffee estate
group, the largest in Ethiopia with a total
of seven private farms spread out through
the country’s central and southern grow-
ing regions.

“After we took over Bebeka from an-born Saudi billionaire Mohammed Al
the government four years ago we have Amoudi has invested in Ethiopia in sectors
up-rooted 50 percent of the coffee trees as diverse as agriculture to cement and gold
and yet we have already doubled the en- mines.
tire output of Bebeka from the remaining “When Al Amoudi decided to go
trees by applying the correct agricultural into coffee it was not just because coffee
practices,” Ahmed told Tea & Coffee Trade as an Ethiopian is in his blood but because
Journal in an exclusive interview during a that’s where he can have a real big im-
visit to Ethiopia, adding, “When the new pact on the socio-economic development
trees mature we believe that production needed for the country,” said Ahmed. “If
will gradually increase to 96,000 bags over we look at Ethiopia today just compared
the next three years.” to a few years ago, now 85 percent of the
The massive Bebeka estate, which children have access to elementary school
is home to over 10,000 hectares of coffee, and we have reduced child mortality by
is at the heart of Ethiopia’s new coffee over 50 percent. This would not have hap-
growth. Based in the Kaffa Zone, as the pened if it wasn’t because the government
region officially is called, this is where is investing heavily into education and the
historians say that coffee was first found coffee regions are a big part of this,” he said.
growing in the wild sometime around the The work undertaken with the in-
6th century. Even today, vast areas of both vestment has been quick to bear results and
Kaffa and the neighboring regions here it’s hard for visitors not to be impressed.
are home to wild coffee growing in the Row after row of new young trees all
forests. The Bebeka farm is the largest of planted within the last two years are found
the seven farms that Horizon Plantations as far as the eye can see, some on bigger
purchased from the government in order plateaus and exposed directly to the sun,
to start injecting private investment into but most grown in the forest under a dense
what just a few years back was an ailing cover of shade trees.
Ethiopian coffee industry run into decay At both the Limmu and Bebeka es-
by poor practices, little management and tates, besides re-planting, the priority has
a lack of market policies. been on training farm workers in proper
Together, with the six-farm Limmu cultivation practices; from how to prune
Coffee Estate, the seven farms have over trees, to how to pick and process the cof-
25,000 hectares of land under coffee culti- fee. Hundreds of washing units have been
(Above & Bottom) The Bebeka Estate is vation, making it by far the biggest single- entirely replaced and several hundred
the largest of the seven farms that Horizon managed coffee estate group in the world. kilometers of farm roads have been im-
Plantations purchased from the government Horizon Plantations purchased the Bebeka proved or built from scratch. The better
in order to privately fund what was an ailing and Limmu farms in central Djimma prov- and enhanced infrastructure has been a
Ethiopian coffee industry a few years ago; ince for about USD $80 million in 2009 and key to the boom in coffee in Ethiopia, said
run into disarray by poor practices, little the farms are part of investments worth Kemal Mohammed, operations manager
management and few market policies. over USD $500 million, which Ethiopi- for Horizon Plantations.
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