Since agriculture is the base of Ethiopia’s economy, it needs to have high consideration by all government bodies and stakeholders that are directly responsible on the matter. Today, the country is in a position to achieve high productivity crops and boost maximum benefit from the sector. Especially, agricultural products that have a demand in an international market have been given due attention by the government in producing ample outcome for both home and international market usage.
Recently, the government has established authorities that are responsible for the improvement of the sector through deploying the right institution at the right place and time to eliminate work overloads. The previous Ministry under agriculture has been divided into some respective Ministries and Authorities. Among these the Ministry of Farming and Natural Resource Development are concerned a lot with increasing farming productivity as far as possible. And the programme for protecting and implementing coffee production is under practice based on protecting the type species of the nation’s coffee.
There are three different types of coffee in the world. These are coffee Arabica, coffee robusta and coffee liberia. Among these, coffee arabica and coffee robusta are produced in much amount. Coffee robusta is produced in relative similar amount with coffee arabica. However, coffee robusta has much caffeine (2.5+) that is why it tastes bitter. Therefore, the world’s 70 percent of coffee available on market is coffee arabica and it is also consumed by the mass in preference. The origin of coffee Arabica is Ethiopia. However, as the origin and highly growing of the type, the nation has not benefited too much economically from the item.
Experts identify the cause as absence of knowledge on modern farming system, lack of technology, influence of plant diseases, and lack of swift seed and absence of quality. And limited promotion is another problem that hinders the product not to penetrate the international market. They also suggested the possible resolutions.
Berhanu Tsegaye, a Higher Coffee Expert at the Ministry of Farming and Natural Resource Development, said that the nation long lived traditional farming couldn’t help for quality coffee production. Therefore, to produce much quantity of coffee in a qualified production system, the farmers need to get continual training on how to plant, protect and harvest coffee in a modern way. And familiarizing the farmer with new technologies, how to breed resilient new coffee beans that are strong enough to resist climate change and diseases could also be taken as other mechanisms.
On the other hand, developing the farmer’s economy is a crucial method to boost the sector. This is due to the fact that the farmers are the integral pillar of coffee production. And the ministry is working for this achievement side by side with the essential grooming through protecting the benefit of the farmer by working with the whole intended stakeholders including association, unions, corporate suppliers, government organizations and other international organizations. Farmers need to get the possible benefit from selling the product in a fair price. For this, the government has ratified a law in 2008 that could control illegal merchants.
The experts have also noticed out that the timely stimulation for farmers in an emergency case is crucial for the betterment and safe coffee production so as to keep the product from damage. According to the report from Ministry of Farming and Natural Resource Development, the nation has four types of coffee productions including forest coffee, semi-forest, garden and extension coffee productions covering 10, 35, 50 and 5 percent of the nation coffee supplies respectively.
Therefore, when we think of the protection of coffee, much intended consideration shall be given to coffee each production systems. At forest for example, coffee production is undertaken through the traditional farm that it needs some moderation. Berhanu identifies forest coffee into three: core zone, buffer zone and transitional zone. The core zone coffee forest is the most prohibited area except for harvesting. The buffer zone coffee could get some protection of the farmers including weed avoidance, using compost instead of chemicals, pesticides and others. Therefore, breeding the most needed coffee type of the forest coffee is what the ministry is going to work a lot on.
On the other hand, identifying the most coffee production areas will help to find out the possible remedies and the better productivity in each respective places. According to recent studies made by the central statistics agency Oromia, Southern Nation Nationalities and People, Benishangul, Gambela and Amhara have got the higher plantation with 306505, 121947, 300, 130, 3396 coffee seedlings respectively. Generally, the ministry has distributed some 432,279 seedlings to the aforementioned areas last year. Among these 37 of the seedlings were swift coffee beans.
Alemayehu Tadesse, Senior Coffee and Tea Expert at the Ministry, revealed that the nation has a wide arable land that could help to improve coffee productivity. According to him, the nation’s weather condition and soil type is a very suitable environment for the growing of coffee.
Moreover, the recent coffee growing areas such as Amhara, Beninshangul and Gambela State could be taken as an example. And the areas have shown the possibility of growing coffee in several areas of the nation.
Although the current drought which was caused due to climate change has affected the farmers earning in producing grain and other farming, it will not have significant impact on coffee productivity except in some areas of east and west Harerghe. Neverthless, the climate change has a great opportunity to increase coffee productivity as it became a cause for sufficient rain in most of the coffee growing areas including Keffa, Sheka, Jimma, Bench Maji, Illubabor and Wellega Zones. If a coffee has grown once and could root in, it has a capacity to resist water shortage that may be the main reason to coffee in resisting climate change. And if it could get the expected sufficient rain at
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