MILAN – Nestle SA has started the distribution of disease-resistant plants to coffee farmers in Ivory Coast to replace old and unproductive coffee trees.
The aim is to help the country boost its production of the robusta variety by 40% within the end of the decade.
Nestle will distribute more than 2 million plants to farmers this year, according to Patricio Astolfi, the general director of the company’s unit in the country.
The disease-resistant plants Nestle is introducing can grow beans in two to three years with a yield of at least 1 ton per hectare.
After years of armed conflict, low prices and mismanagements, Ivory Coast production fell to historic lows at the end of the last decade. The country’s output is expected to reach a total of 2.1 million bags in 2013/14, up 100,000 bags from the previous coffee year. Ivory Coast’s production reached a peak of 6.32 million bags in 1999/00.
According to Astolfi, coffee plantations have been long neglected and this explains the very low productivity.
