Page 60 - #47 English

Culture

Coffee production in Ethiopia is beginning to return to new highs that less than a decade ago few would have thought possible.

“These kinds of farms, more than any other because contrast against the deep red basaltic soils. New seedlings
of the size of these farms, require a lot of investment—just are everywhere along the road, ready to be planted on
the roads are a huge cost. Transportation has a huge impact the farms, and a group of young girls are headed toward
on development and today all the coffee regions in Ethio- the school a few kilometers away in the blue and white
pia are connected to the capital by asphalt road and the uniforms. The Ethiopian coffee boom is happening and
government is now starting to work on the inter-regional the positive impact on socio-economic conditions for the
roads,” said Mohammed. more than 20 million people who depend on coffee here
is a reality.
Realistic Production Numbers Just north of Bebeka, on the other side of the Kaffa
Precise production figures have always been dif- coffee town of Bonga town, local farmer Gerawa Yesuf is
ficult to verify, but since Ethiopia surpassed 5.0 million tending to a new field of young coffee seedlings, carefully
60-kilogram bags in total output for the first time in the providing husbandry for each new little green plant. The
2004-05 harvest, production has gradually expanded and is government, she said, gave local producers four kilograms
forecast to reach 8.5 million bags in the new 2014-15 crop of seed and when carefully nursed one kilo of seed produces
year, according to the London-based International Coffee 4,000 seedlings.
Organization. The Ethiopian Coffee Growers Association “This was all forest coffee,” said Yesuf, pointing
in the capital of Addis Ababa, meanwhile, has projected out to each side of the farm, where a piece of land in the
that production will reach between 9 and 10 million bags back is still covered by forest. “I have been here almost 25
by 2020. Even if final figures should turn out to come in years and I now have 4.5 hectares, of which 1.5 hectares is
lower, it’s an impressive growth curve that Ethiopia has forest coffee and these 2.0 hectares we have planted with
achieved in the last 10 years. new coffee during the last two years,” she said.
“After the military took over control of the country
in 1974, they nationalized all the coffee farms and it’s just Embracing New Policies Improves Production
a little over seven years ago that the government started As Ethiopia’s coffee industry is embracing its new
the liberalization of the economy. We received the farms market-oriented and investment-friendly policies, coffee
in Limmu and Bebeka with no infrastructure at all; there production is starting to grow to new highs that less than
had been no investments for years, there was no infra- a decade ago few would have thought possible. And it’s
structure and there wasn’t even any machinery left,” said not just in Kaffa that such expansions are taking place.
Mohammed. From the famed southern coffee regions of Sidamo and
“With all the different initiatives we have put in Yirgacheffe to the eastern-most coffee zone of Harar, all
place, from growing techniques to the input we use and reports are of bigger crops and better beans.
the improved infrastructure, we expect that the average “When you go to Harar today, and any other coffee
productivity will increase to the maximum of about 1.8 region for that matter, you see the renovation going on
tons per hectare by 2018 from around 700 kilograms now,” and you see that coffee farming is being done correctly,
Kemal said. that farmers are applying new agricultural practices to the
Driving through the Limmu estate an early morn- way they grow coffee,” said Orit Orle, owner of Dubai-
ing, the beautiful evergreen of the coffee forests are cast based Boon Coffee importers and specialty roasters of
in a fresh and bright light that stands out in a spectacular Ethiopian coffees.
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