The European Union (EU) recommended Ethiopia to be the only possible location for hosting a research institute of Coffee Arabica at a workshop organized by the EU and the Coffee Development Sector on Thursday.
Gunther Herhaus, a consultant at the Germany-based Dipl. Lng, highlighted the opportunities that will see the success of Coffee Arabica through launching various mechanisms to mitigate the current problems and coming up with a new idea of establishing a research institute.
According to Herhaus, who presented a research on the entire coffee market and Ethiopia’s recent poor performance of the coffee sector, one of the best ways to get Ethiopia’s specialty coffee back on track was realizing a research institute that would help farmers and exporters maintain quality and enhance production.
“Arguably, Ethiopia remains the most important place for Coffee Arabica and possibly the right location for a research institute as well,” he said.
Ethiopia has long been producing the finest coffee Arabica for millions of consumers worldwide despite the deterioration in quality in recent years.
Insufficient attention to the quality as farmers care more about quantity, poor cultivation and storage, inconvenient transportation, poor data collection on market assessment and frequent amendments on regulations are said to have impacted the coffee sector by the consultant amongst various reasons that halt coffee development in Ethiopia.
However, Gunther remains optimistic that Ethiopia will make remarkable progress in sharing one of the most important markets when it resolves some of the problems mentioned above. “It can reclaim the top spot when it goes through these necessary steps towards a certain goal,” he told the Reporter.
Ethiopia has been regarded as the home of coffee for a thousand years now according to the legend that claims that Kaffa, in the western part of the country, was the birthplace of coffee as the name itself recognizes the English version, coffee. It is to be recalled that recently Ethiopia also won the bid to host the 4th World Coffee Conference in 2016.
Source: http://www.saajidshow.net/headlines_201406030628.html
