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Coffee in Retrospect: "Ethiopia Boosts Coffee Production; U.S. State Department is Getting a Headache"


Ethiopia already has asked American Point Four experts in Addis Ababa for assistance. The State Department in Washington is getting a headache over Ethiopian coffee because of probable reaction from Brazil, jealous of its dominant position.



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Ed's Note: Coffee in Retrospect is a column prepared by Coffee Monitor and Poor Farmer blog to provide context for the current global coffee trade by republishing news articles from the past. In this column, we intend to reprint archived prints by converting images into electronic file formats with careful conformity to originals and, whenever applicable and possible, we provide links to the sources of the information. Meanwhile, responsibility for the contents lies solely with the authors and the views expressed in the articles do not necessarily reflect our opinions.
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ETHIOPIA BOOSTS COFFEE PRODUCTION

St. Petersburg Times 13-A

Sunday, May 23, 1954

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (/P) - Ethiopia, which claims to be the original home of the coffee bean, is launching a vast expansion program to claim a major share of world coffee production.

Coffee is now Ethiopia's biggest export. The country shipped out 43.000 metric tons last year. This brought in 99,916,000 Ethiopian dollars ($40,000,000 U.S.; or almost exactly the amount of the country's national budget.

This is small in comparison with Brazil's production of 1.250,000 tons but Ethiopians believe they can nearly double coffee tonnage overnight with a few simple steps and aim for 500,000 tons annually in about 10 years with the help of American development capital.

Emperor Haile Selassie himself is going to plug the coffee program when he comes to the United States. He will meet with a group of American investors June 2 at New York University to discuss coffee and other Ethiopian goods. The Emperor is said to look on coffee as one of Ethiopia's best hopes.

Ethiopia already has asked American Point Four experts in Addis Ababa for assistance.

The State Department in Washington is getting a headache over Ethiopian coffee because of probable reaction from Brazil, jealous of its dominant position.

It's believed likely, however, that the U.S. will encourage Ethiopia's coffee plans as a means of financing a greatly-needed general development program in this primitive 400,000-mile African empire.

Point Four is now operating a new research center at Jimma in the heart of the coffee growing region. It has brought in 10,000 coffee seedlings from all over the world.

Marcus J. Gordon, director of the U.S. operations mission to Ethiopia, said it's hoped to make this one of the best coffee research laboratories in Africa.

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