More than 500 coffee growers, investors and researchers gathered in Tanzania on Wednesday to discuss the future of the industry in Eastern, Central and Southern Africa.
The region grows some of the world’s most distinctive coffees, along a long north-south axis that includes the highlands of Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, and other less prominent areas.
”We are discussing issues related to coffee industry globally, but the conference will be so much focused on Eastern Africa where the emphasis now is on specialty coffee,” Leslie Omari, chairperson of the Eastern African Fine Coffee Association, said at the beginning of the three-day meeting.
Although the region grows premium quality coffee, local consumption is very low, Tanzania’s Vice-President Ali Shein said while opening the conference.
”Coffee consumption in Tanzania and Kenya is only two percent of its production, while Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda and other member countries is less than one percent. It is only in Ethiopia where coffee consumption is 50% of its production,” Shein said.
”We should find it appropriate and an opportune time to launch a major campaign to encourage coffee drinking in this region,” Shein said.
A World Bank report released this month notes that the prices of Arabica and Robusta coffee increased to $2,74 and $1,41a kilogramme respectively in January this year, from $2,33 and $1,24 last December.
The Arabica prices are expected to average $2,42 a kilogramme during 2006 and decline slightly during 2007, according to the World Bank.
Countries represented at the conference includes Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, The Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia
and Malawi.
Their ”often remarkable coffees are characterised by a variety of striking floral and fruit notes, from the almost perfume-like floral and citrus character of Ethiopia wet-processed coffees through the intensely acidy and berry-toned Kenyas to the soft and voluptuously fruity Zambias,” according to the online edition of the US-based Coffee Review. – Sapa-AP