Restore coffee trade to its former glory
The project coordinator of the lobby group Agricultural Non-State Actors Forum (Ansaf), Ms Edna Lugano, was right when she stated over a year ago that Tanzania’s coffee industry was in deep crisis, and that deliberate efforts needed to be taken to rescue it.
Speaking in an exclusive interview – excerpts of which we published on October 23, 2018 – Ms Lugano dwelt on the challenges plaguing the coffee industry, and how to turn round what was a robust agricultural sub-sector gone wrong.
Available statistics have it that from 2014 to 2018 Tanzania trailed Uganda and Kenya in foreign exchange earnings from coffee exports.
For example, while Tanzania earned $148.3 million from coffee exports in 2018, Uganda and Kenya earned $436 million and $231.7 million, respectively.
But this trend is at variance with Tanzania’s past history as a major coffee exporter to reckon with. The poor trend is still ongoing – and would in all probability continue if remedial measures are not taken apace.
In that 2018 interview, Ms Lugano, identified low producer prices as a major reason which forces Tanzanian coffee farmers and their collaborators or dealers to smuggle the crop to neighbouring countries whose market prices are higher. Besides, Tanzanian coffee farmers must by government fiat sell their coffee to local cooperatives.
No wonder, then, that our neighbours-cum-co-partners in the East African Community economic bloc are reaping the lucrative benefit of higher export earnings in much-needed hard currency at the expense of Tanzanian coffee producers in particular, and the national economy at large.
We earnestly call upon the relevant authorities – including especially the government, the Coffee Board, the Customs Department and the Police, among others – to explore and apply ways and means of restoring our coffee industry to its former highs up there with Brazil, Vietnam and the like.
