By Ludger
Kasumuni
April 27, 2012
Dar es Salaam. Tanzania’s inability to improve coffee quality is denying it an opportunity to enjoy benefits from rising commodity prices in the world market.
Kenya has
been earning substantially especially from Arabica coffee exports since 2002,
said researcher Donald Mmari when presenting his research findings at a Repoa
annual workshop recently.
Kenya
earns more than $200 million a year from coffee exports twice as much as
Tanzania’s. “Even after trade liberalisation, the quality of Tanzanian coffee
has not increased to that of the level of Kenya’s.
Economic
liberalisation of the1980s and 1990s was carried out based on comparative
advantage. It largely ignored the influence of evolving technology and market
dynamics that alter production and cost structures, and structural and
institutional constraints that prevented coffee producers from creating and
sustaining a competitive advantage,” he said.
According
to him, the shift of agricultural policies from the powers of coffee growers to
the state through gradual changes of legislation from 1960s, 1970s and even the
trade liberalisation of the 1980s and 1990s have failed to improve the quality
of Tanzanian coffee.
“The
problem with the coffee industry in Tanzania is that it revolves around the
failure to increase quality. There was neither policy nor strategy to improve
central processing of coffee and alternative mechanisms to provide integrated
agricultural services effectively in place of cooperatives,” he said.
Kenya has
maintained centralised institutions that are controlled by coffee producers
through their cooperative unions to ensure high coffee quality and stable
markets.
In
Tanzania, small-scale coffee growers, who are major crop producers, have been
processing poor quality coffee. That is the case because the Tanzania Coffee
Board (TCB) has no capacity to guarantee the processing of high quality coffee.
Latest
publications by agencies show that the highest price of Kenya’s benchmark
Arabica coffee of grade A this month was $340 per 50kg bag while Tanzania’s
mild Arabica coffee was sold at around $12 per 50kg bag — a difference of $328
per 50kg.
Tanzania
is Africa’s fourth largest coffee grower after Ethiopia, Uganda and Cote
d’Ivoire. Mr Mmari says Arabica coffee, which is produced around mounts
Kilimanjaro and Meru and Southern highlands, fetches higher prices than
Robusta, which is produced in Western Highlands.
TCB chief
executive Adolph Kumburu was recently quoted as saying the production forecast
for this season had been revised from 40,000 tonnes to 35,000 tonnes due to a
sharp decline in Arabica prices at a time when quality was low.
TCB is
working on a strategy to improve the coffee quality through an intensification
of husbandry and field management with emphasis on the use of central pulpery
units for cherry pulping.