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Africa Should Broaden Coffee Exports, According to ICO’s Sette


By Fred Ojambo
Bloomberg

February 18, 2011

African coffee producers should diversify their exports to tap the crop’s “bright future,” said Jose Sette, acting executive director of the International Coffee Organization.

Broader-based foreign revenue would give support during slumps, Sette said yesterday in an interview at an Eastern African Fine Coffee Association conference in Arusha, Tanzania. Growing countries should invest in expanding productive activities instead of “depending on aid from abroad,” he said, singling out research and training as key areas.

Arabica coffee traded in New York has climbed 12 percent this year after jumping 77 percent in 2010. Rising global prices should motivate producers to boost output and expand Africa’s share of world supply after it fell by half in the last 25 years, according to Sette.

“Coffee has a bright future for the continent if addressed well,” he said. Still, “Africa must diversify and not depend on the sector alone,” Sette said.

Increasing world demand is a spur for the continent to expand its coffee production, he said, pointing to rising consumption in producing countries and in eastern Europe.

The global coffee market may have a 20 million-bag shortfall in 10 years as demand climbs more quickly than supply, Oscar Schaps, managing director of INTL Hencorp Futures, said yesterday.

“Africa needs to invest in a broad range of sectors, including research and training,” he said.

Coffee farmers may need two or three years to boost production, according to Ted Lingle, co-founder of the Coffee Quality Institute in Long Beach, California. An increase would lead to lower prices, he said in Arusha yesterday.
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Editors: Dan Weeks, John Deane.
To contact the reporter on this story: Fred Ojambo in Kampala via the Johannesburg newsroom at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Antony Sguazzin at asguazzin@bloomberg.net

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