Ethiopian Delegation to Deliver on Specialty Coffee

A delegation of forty representatives from the Ethiopian coffee and trade sectors will present Ethiopia as this year’s portrait country at the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) annual event in Seattle, April 9-12. The event is central to the worldwide specialty coffee industry, roasters and buyers. This year some 2,700 exhibitors and more than 8,000 visitors are expected to attend the four-day coffee binge.

The rapid growth in the gourmet coffee market is no surprise as more and more coffee drinkers choose taste over price. In the United States—the world’s number one coffee consuming country—the number of gourmet coffee drinkers grew by 34% in 2014, and specialty coffee cups represent just over half of all coffee drunk in 2014, according to the National Coffee Association.

As this year’s portrait country, Ethiopia has the opportunity to take center stage in the world of specialty coffee and showcase the progress made to improve the coffee value chain and export readiness. In addition, Ethiopian coffee stakeholders and government officials will use the experience to better prepare for the World Coffee Conference and Exhibition, which will held in Addis Ababa in 2016.

The Ethiopian delegation includes a variety of stakeholders ranging from high level government officials to coffee farmer cooperative union members. In addition, members of the USAID AGP Agriculture Marketing Development Program (AMDe)—an Ethiopia-based development program under President Obama’s Feed the Future initiative—have prepared presentations for the event as well as a booth at the event’s exhibition hall.

Ethiopia portrait country lectures include the following:

• Lecture 1: “Unveiling Ethiopian Coffee”, Friday, April 10, 9:00 – 10:15
• Lecture 2: “Redefining Ethiopian Specialty Coffee”, Saturday, April 11, 9:00-10:15

The SCAA Symposium, which takes place April 8 and 9, right before the official opening of the event, will feature information sessions about the specialty coffee market, latest innovations in specialty coffee production, cupping, and gender equality.

Paving the Way for Specialty Coffee

For the last four years, the USAID AGP AMDe program has assisted the Ethiopian government and coffee cooperatives to improve the production, processing and marketing of Ethiopian coffee. As partners, the program and the government of Ethiopia have improved the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange’s (ECX) ability to test and grade coffee beans before putting them on the open market. In addition to quality assurance, the program has mapped the country’s coffee washing stations and installed the necessary technology to properly trace coffee ready for export.

“The technology allows us to use traceability to talk about more than just coffee. We can talk about people now,” explains Mekonnen Haile Michael, the ECX quality operation manager. “Proper traceability will boost the marketing potential of Ethiopian coffees, since buyers can make more informed decisions.”

The ECX laboratory in Addis Ababa is the first SCAA-certified lab in Africa. Today there are a total of three SCAA certified labs countrywide and another six in process. Every day, the nine labs test approximately 50 coffee samples.

“If we move to better promote and market our specialty coffees, we can become price makers instead of price takers on the world market,” said Abdullah Bagersh, chairman of the African Fine Coffee Association.

A Team Effort

The year 2008 was the last time such a wide range of stakeholders worked together to collectively promote and improve the coffee sector. Around that time, the government created the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange, which gave farmer cooperative unions an easier path international buyers. At the same time, Ethiopia’s main coffee associations began considering the intellectual property of coffee regions.

Seven years later, the sector’s main stakeholders have brought Ethiopian coffee back to the world stage and have plenty to boast about. Coffee production in Ethiopia grew 11.3% annually between 2009 and 2013 from 283,000 to over 400,000 tons. Today, the potential of Ethiopia coffee is greater than ever before, and the flavors of Ethiopian coffee, richer than those of anywhere else in the world. Through increased production and new technology, it’s only a matter of time before everybody knows this.

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USAID funded Agribusiness Market Development (AMDe) is the Feed-the-Future initiative’s flagship program in Ethiopia and represent USAID’s largest contributions to the Government of Ethiopia‘s Agricultural Growth Program. The $3.5bn global hunger and food security initiative was created by President Obama and sustains the U.S. Government´s commitment as one of Ethiopia’s largest partners in developing the agriculture sector, which is a fundamental cornerstone of the Ethiopian economy