Tanzania's coffee earnings could fall sharply in the coming season owing to poor weather, fluctuating global prices and surging production costs in key producing areas.
Tanzania Coffee Board director general Adolph Kumburu said while the country could meet this season’s target of 55,000 metric tonnes, drought and crop diseases could cut production in key growing regions such as Kagera and Kilimanjaro, hurting the country’ productivity.
Tanzania, Africa’s fourth-largest coffee grower after Ethiopia, Uganda and Ivory Coast, produces mainly Arabica and some Robusta coffee.
The prices of its Arabica coffee normally track the New York market, while those of Robusta take direction from London.
The output in 2009/2010 was 36,000 tonnes after EAC’s top coffee grower was hit by bad weather and an outbreak of bugs.
The Bank of Tanzania said the current price of coffee in the world market is high and predicted that the trend would continue.
Coffee culture
The bank said the high demand for the product would continue up to 2020 due to the introduction of a coffee culture in big emerging markets such as China and Russia.
At the Moshi auction, the prices rose to $340 per 50kg bag of Arabica, the highest in 15 years.
Marketing of Tanzanian coffee as a branded Singe Original ensures that it gets a bigger share of the world market.
To boost output, the state-run regulator wants farmers to move to multi-stem plant management.
The coffee board wants to increase the area under coffee to 300,000 hectares from 250,000 hectares, add six new growing regions to bring the total to 13, and replace old varieties with disease-resistant trees with higher productivity.
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