Source: Reuters
04/08/2009
Lusaka, Aug 3 - Zambia's coffee output will decline to 1,800 tonnes in 2009 from 1,887 tonnes last year due to low production after some farmers abandoned coffee growing, a senior industry official said on Monday.
Joseph Taguma, the general manager of the Zambia Coffee Growers Association (Zcga), said there would be a marginal drop in the harvest of coffee, which started in May and ends next month.
The Zcga data shows Zambian output peaked at 6,000 tonnes in 2004, but poor weather and lack of capital for growth in recent years had forced production to drop.
Taguma said this had in turn forced some farmers to start growing other cash crops.
Zambia does not grow coffee on a large scale like Ethiopia and Kenya, but its coffee is sought by buyers in Japan, the United States and Europe.
Zambia grows and exports washed arabicas, including its premier Triple A brand coffee mainly shipped to Japan.
"The basic problem is that we don't have long-term finance for the coffee industry in our country and that kind of financing can only be arranged (by the) government," Taguma told Reuters.
Taguma said the government needed to arrange credit lines with multilateral lenders such as the World Bank, which has previously financed Zambia coffee growers.
"We don't see any future and yet this is an area which we need to develop in agriculture ... coffee production is a long-term investment," Taguma said.
Taguma said the number of large scale coffee growers in the southern African country had dropped to 11 from 75 in 2003, while there were now only 40 small scale coffee growers from 500 farmers six years ago.
Taguma said coffee farmers required financing of at least five years, but local commercial banks were not ready to provide such finances.
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