Hope as coffee makes new return as major cash crop

Arusha. Coffee, which used to be black gold in Tanzania, is on rebound, due to rising demand globally.

According to global agricultural polls, there will be shortage of over 80,000 tonnes of coffee beans worldwide in the fiscal year 2022/2023.

Senior Product Researcher from the Tanzania Coffee Research Institute (Tacri) Amani Evance said that the country is also in a better position to fill that vacuum as its coffee beans are currently ripe for harvest.

Read: Research is key towards production and quality improvement of coffee in Tanzania

“We expect bumper harvests this year because local growers were provided with improved coffee seedlings in 2021 that should be ripe now,” said Mr Evance.

More than 15 million new Robusta and Arabica coffee seedlings were distributed to farmers across the country, free of charge and the improved varieties promise better yields.

The Tacri Researcher adds that, between January and June 2022, the government distributed 14 million more seedlings to farmers across the nation.

“Many growers have been reviving their formerly defunct coffee farms after prices soared on local and international markets,” said Mr Evance.

“We are back into growing coffee but farmers need to be supported in order to ensure production is maintained,” says Mr Robert Mollel, a coffee grower in Olasiti, Arusha.

He appealed to the government to conduct more research on the notorious pests that continue to hound coffee trees in the country.

Prices of raw Coffee beans in the country at the moment are in the range of Sh8000 to Sh10,000 per kilo, which is almost eight times of the previous price of Sh1500 per kilo.

The demand for coffee has been rising worldwide following the recent fall of the beans production in Brazil, which is the global leader of the beans farming.

A marginal global coffee deficit of 8.4 million bags was realized in 2021/22, fiscal year according to the global agriculture poll.

At the moment the deficit is expected to be reduced as Brazil and Vietnam expect to harvest large volumes of the beans but the shortages will still remain with a deficit of 800,000 bags or 80,000 tonnes expected in 2022/23.

Meanwhile, global demand of Coffee is also being fueled by the fact that people are currently adapting to new healthier lifestyles replacing other unhealthy beverages with coffee.

Arabica growing regions are Arusha, Kilimanjaro, Mbeya and Ruvuma.

Robusta is mainly produced in the Kagera region.

Other coffee growing regions include Tanga, Iringa, Morogoro, Kigoma, Manyara, Mwanza, Rukwa and Mara.

According to the Tanzania Coffee Board (TCB) domestic coffee consumption is growing at an average of between 1.5 and 2 percent per year.