Ethiopian Coffee Research Articles

Determinants of Ethiopian Coffee Exports to Its Major Trade Partners: A Dynamic Gravity Model Approach

The aim of this article is to examine export determinants of Ethiopian coffee to 31 trade partner countries using a dynamic gravity model and system generalised moment method of estimation (GMM) for the period 1998–2016. Descriptive results showed that Ethiopia was exporting only 39% of its total coffee production, and 53.5% and 34.13% of Ethiopian coffee exports were directed to European and Asian countries, respectively, over the period 1998–2016. Regression results revealed that trade openness, population size of Ethiopia, foreign direct investment and institutional quality index of Ethiopia are positively and significantly affecting volume of Ethiopian coffee export. But population of partner countries, weighted distance, lagged export volume and real exchange rate are negatively and significantly influencing export volume of Ethiopian coffee. Hence, Ethiopia needs to diversify its export destinations and export items a way from primary agricultural exports to secondary industrial exports in order to secure dependable source of foreign currency. Also, controlling corruption, increasing government effectiveness, ensuring political stability promotion of foreign direct investment and encouraging trade liberalisation would help to boost the volume of Ethiopian coffee export. JEL Codes: F12, F13, F14

Organic Crop Productivity Demonstration Using Tillage And Biofertilizer Management Approaches At Kulumsa, Southeastern Ethiopia

Organic agriculture assures sustainability of crop production with low or no use of external agricultural inputs. It is practiced under small scale level for high value crop such as coffee in Ethiopia. Although crop rotation as part of organic agriculture is practiced in food security crops like wheat and faba bean, it is not implemented under large scale production schemes. Thus, a field research was conducted to test and demonstrate organic farming and associated tillage and fertility trials at Kulumsa, southeastern Ethiopia. Interventions were deep plowing followed by soil harmonization using alfalfa and lathyrus planting in 2016. Then, all the planted biomass were converted to the soil during the second heavy plowing before setting up the trials. Separate sets of large blocks (20 ha) of field experiments were undertaken in 2017 main cropping season. Tillage experiments using mechanized and oxen plowing treatments were compared in faba bean and tef demonstration fields in 2.28 ha per each crop. Faba bean productivity was higher in oxen than tractor plowed field. Although non-significant, application of bio fertilizer gave better faba bean yield with tractor than oxen plowed field. Tef yield was better in oxen than tractor plowed field. Similarly, five crops (0.75 ha each) were evaluated for their productivity in organic model farm experiment under green manure and with additional decomposed animal manure. Organic based bread wheat (3300 kg/ha) production showed above national average yield. Productivity of potato was 24,444 kg/ha and that of fresh alfalfa biomass was11, 640 kg/ha. Thus, agroecological system approaches such as proper tillage, soil harmonization and crop rotation showed significant effect to reduce weed species composition and increased productivity at last.

Review on Coffee Production and Quality in Ethiopia

Coffee is one of the world's most significant agricultural commodities. Ethiopia is the origin of Arabica coffee (<i>Coffea arabica L.)</i> and contains a diverse genetic pool. The goal of this review is to provide an overview of Ethiopian coffee production, production systems, and quality. Coffee production is critical to the Ethiopian economy, with around a quarter of the people relying on it directly or indirectly for survival. Ethiopia's main product, coffee, is the country's economic backbone. Ethiopian coffee output is between 400,000 and 550,000 metric tons per year, depending on weather and soil conditions. Coffee, Ethiopia's principal export, is the country's economic backbone with the majority growing in the country's south, southwest, and east. Ethiopia has four techniques of coffee production: forest coffee, semi-forest coffee, and forest coffee. Coffee quality is a yardstick for the coffee industry. Despite good climatic conditions and a diverse range of indigenous coffee cultivars, coffee quality has been dropping owing to a variety of inadequate pre-and post-harvest methods. Despite ideal climatic conditions and a diverse range of indigenous coffee kinds for quality development, coffee quality has been deteriorating owing to a variety of inadequate pre-and post-harvest practices. Lack of competitiveness, infrastructure, proper access to services, insufficient value addition, effective knowledge transfer and research, competitiveness, and unpredictability of rainfall are all major challenges to Ethiopian coffee production, and coffee marketing, pricing instability, and restricted market access have all been cited as major concerns. Enhancing infrastructure and institutional facilities, as well as upgrading coffee manufacturing techniques that include the introduction of new coffee varieties. As a result, enhancing coffee quality required the use of proper agronomic and climatic conditions, as well as the adoption of proven crop varieties.

Trade, value chains, and rent distribution with foreign exchange controls: Coffee exports in Ethiopia

AbstractExchange rate policies can have important implications on incentives for export agriculture. However, their effects are often not well understood. We study the issue of foreign exchange controls and pricing in the value chain for Ethiopia's coffee—its most important export crop. Relying on unique pricing and cost data, we find that coffee exporters are willing to incur losses during exporting by offering high prices for coffee locally in order to access scarce foreign exchange. We further find that the consequent high wholesale prices for coffee are transmitted to producers, so that coffee farmers are unintended beneficiaries of this rent.

Why have Ethiopian coffee farmers earned lower incomes between 1990 and 2019 despite increasing coffee production, and what solutions are there to improve their incomes?

Why have Ethiopian coffee farmers earned lower incomes between 1990 and 2019 despite increasing coffee production, and what solutions are there to improve their incomes?

Ethiopian coffee germplasm is a valuable resistance gene pool to brazilian Pseudomonas syringae PVS garcae and tabaci

ABSTRACT Seven wild accessions of Coffea arabica from Ethiopia prospected by FAO Coffee Mission 1964-1965 were investigated concerning the resistance to 18 Brazilian strains and two Kenyan strains of Pseudomonas syringae pv. garcae and four P. syringae pv. tabaci strains, causal agents of bacterial halo blight and bacterial leaf spot, respectively. The cultivars of C. arabica IPR 102, resistant to the diseases, and Mundo Novo IAC 376-4, susceptible, were used as experimental controls. Our results indicated that the Ethiopian accessions presented high levels of resistance to all Brazilian strains of P. syringae pv. garcae but were susceptible to infection caused by Kenyan strains, which causes different levels of severity in wild accessions and experimental controls. Ethiopian accessions were also considered resistant to the four P. syringae pv. tabaci strains, with low susceptibility observed, one point on the severity scale, in access E-268 in response to a strain of the bacterium.

The Impact of Exchange Rate on Ethiopia’s Coffee Export

Although coffee constitutes the largest share of exports, producers in Ethiopia have historically received a small percentage of the export revenue from the price of green coffee. Reasons often mentioned are heavy government intervention and high marketing and processing costs. Before 1992, government regulation of the domestic coffee market in the form of fixed producer prices and the Ethiopian Coffee Marketing Corporation's monopoly power put a substantial wedge between the producer price and the world price of coffee by imposing an implicit tax on producers. Having liberalized the market and adopted a floating exchange rate regime to boost exports (coffee) as the country struggles with foreign exchange shortages, not much has improved in exports (coffee) or foreign reserve availability. This paper utilizes monthly data from 2010-2015 to develop a multiple regression model to determine the impact the exchange rate has on coffee export if there is any. The empirical findings indicate that the exchange rate is not significant in determining or influencing exports but the prices of the two famous coffee types (Arabica and Robusta). Corroborated by the research outcome, we suggest that policymakers do not rely on the depreciation or devaluation of the ETB (Ethiopian Birr) as a tool for export promotion and growth.

Analysis of a Coffee Husk Fired Cogeneration Plant in South Western Ethiopia Coffee Processing Industries

Nowadays our energy needs have grown exponentially corresponding with human population growth and technological advancement. Energy consumption linked to non-renewable resources contributes to greenhouse gas emissions and enhances resource depletion. Most of the researchers were proven that the worldwide concern about CO2 emissions and the reduction in the use of coal fuels have increased the interest in using biomass fuel for electricity production, because there is no net increase in CO2 emissions from biomass (agricultural residues such as straw, bagasse, coffee husk, and rice husks) combustion. Furthermore, coffee husk which has high energy potential was not taken into account for the generation of energy. However, this paper investigates the energy generation in coffee husk, and suggests coffee husk is an energy source. The datum was collected from the south western region of Ethiopia (Taipei town), and its equipment was selected. Coffee husk was tested experimentally in Addis Ababa University with Eager 300 software for running the equipment, storing the data and analyzing. The results obtained that calorific values were 18.98 MJ/kg. Overall the result demonstrates that the proposed coffee husk has high energy potential for the generation of energy.

GIS-based assessment of climate change impacts on forest habitable Aframomum corrorima (Braun) in Southwest Ethiopia coffee forest

Climate change is thought to have a greater impact on crops that require particular conditions for their productivity. Southwest Ethiopia is a region where important cash crops such as Coffea arabica and Aframomum corrorima (korerima) originate. These crops are known to require shade for their growth and productivity. This study was conducted to assess the impacts of climate change on an important but neglected cash crop of A. corrorima using GIS-based species distribution approaches. Local meteorological data and bioclimatic data from WorldClim were used to map past, present, and future distribution of the crop in the Coffee Forest System of Southwest Ethiopia. Moreover, 96 key informants were interviewed and completed questionnaires to complement the distribution modeling. The key informants mapped the history and present occurrences of A. corrorima and based on this, ground-truthing survey was conducted. The interpolation method of the Inverse Distance Weighted was used in ArcGIS 10.5 to develop bioclimatic variables for modeling past and present distribution while data from IPCC (AR4) Emissions Scenarios was used for the future occurrence prediction using Principal Component Analysis. Eleven best bioclimatic variables were selected and MaxEnt was used to model past, present and future distribution of A. corrorima. The output of our model was validated using Area Under the Curve (AUC) approach. Temperature and precipitation are the most important environmental variable, then temperature increased by 1.3°C in the past (from 1988 to 2018) while it is predicted to increase further by at least 1.4°C before 2050. On the contrary, precipitation decreased by an average of 10.1 mm from the past while it is predicted to decrease further by 12.5 mm before 2050. Our model shows that the area suitable for korerima in 1988 was 20,638.2 ha and it was reduced by half and became 10,545.3 ha in 2018, similarly predicted to shrink into 3225.5 ha by 2050. The findings from the key informants confirm the model results whereby 89.1% of the respondent replied korerima producing area has been shifted into the mountains over the last 30 years (by 150 m a.s.l. from 1988 to 2018) and thus expected to be pushing up in the next 32 years (by 133 m before 2050). The community claims that the length of the rainy season of the area has been shortening from 9 months in the past to an average of 5.5 months recently which also coincides with increasing temperature. We conclude that with the changing climatic condition, the suitable habitat of korerima has already shrank by 48.9% (from 1988 to 2018) and the trend may lead to a shrink by 84.38% before 2050 (from 1988 to 2050). Therefore, it is important to develop site-specific climate adaptation strategies for the region such as promoting alternative livelihoods and avoiding further coffee forest degradation and deforestation.

Effect of habitual consumption of Ethiopian Arabica coffee on the risk of cardiovascular diseases among non-diabetic healthy adults

BackgroundGlobally, coffee is one of the most consumed beverages and recently, it has been a target of researchers to understand its effect on human health whether good or bad. Even though there is controversy on coffee consumption effect in cardiovascular diseases, several reports pointed out that coffee has a positive effect on the occurrence and progression of chronic non-communicable diseases including cardiovascular diseases. However, the impact of Ethiopian coffee Arabica consumption on cardiovascular diseases has not been well investigated thoroughly. ObjectiveThe aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of habitual consumption of Ethiopian Arabica coffee on the risk of cardiovascular diseases among non-diabetic individuals in Addis Ababa. Materials and methodsA cross-sectional study was conducted in 70 healthy individuals in Addis Ababa. The participants were 35 coffee drinkers (16 males; 19 females) and 35 non-drinkers (15 males; 20 females). Coffee consumption and demographic data were obtained by using questionnaires. Anthropometric measurements were measured according to World Health Organization standards. Blood samples were collected by trained laboratory technicians through aseptic and sterile techniques for the analysis of biochemical parameters. Serum was separated via centrifugation and transported to Addis Ababa University, College of Health Sciences, Biochemistry laboratory with an ice pack for analysis or stored at -80 °C. Results were compared between coffee consumers and non -consumers using appropriate statistical parameter. ResultThe main finding of this study was that consumption of Ethiopian origin Arabica coffee leads to a significant increase in serum free fatty acids (FFAs) and high density lipoprotein (HDL) as well as a significant decrease in triacylglycerides (TAGs) but has no significant effect in both total cholesterol (TC) and low density lipoprotein (LDL). The magnitude of the effect is similar in both sexes. ConclusionThe present study demonstrated that Ethiopian coffee Arabica consumption significantly affected most serum lipid levels and so it may be possible to say it has a protective effect against risks of cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). However, the correlations between coffee consumption habits and serum lipid levels require further investigation through experimental and epidemiological studies with larger sample size, including different age groups and nutritional habits.

In Vitro Antibacterial and Antioxidant Activities of Roasted and Green Coffee Beans Originating from Different Regions of Ethiopia.

Coffee is among the most traded commodities and consumed beverages worldwide primarily for its stimulating effects. Moreover, coffee is known to contain various bioactive compounds with significant health benefits including antibacterial and antioxidant activities. However, Ethiopia as the origin of coffee and producer and exporter of varieties of Coffea arabica has made little study on the health aspects of this beverage. The aim of this study was to examine the antibacterial and antioxidant activities and content of coffee samples from different localities of Yorgacheffe and Jimma; and roasted, ground, and packed samples purchased from a coffee shop in Addis Ababa. Medium-roasted-boiled and lyophilized coffee extracts were tested on eight gram-negative and gram-positive bacterial strains. The agar-well diffusion method was used to test the extracts determining the minimum inhibitory and bactericidal concentrations. For coffee antioxidant activity and content, light-roasted (both field and shop samples) and green coffee bean extracts were tested using the free radical 2.2-diphenyl-l-pict1hydrazyl (DPPH) IC50 percent inhibition protocol. The samples showed strong antibacterial and antioxidant activity and substantial antioxidant content. Significant variation was noted in the antibacterial activities of the different coffee samples. Moreover, the growth-inhibitory strength of each coffee sample was variable for different test bacteria. A coffee sample with the best antibacterial activity had also the highest antioxidant activity/content. The shop coffee had the lowest bioactivity. The observed variations in the antibacterial and antioxidant activities among the samples probably indicate the diversity of the Ethiopian coffee related, among other factors, to the coffee plant genetics and agroecology.

Arabica coffee accessions originated from Ethiopia with resistance to nematode Meloidogyne paranaensis

The aim of this study was to evaluate the resistance of Ethiopian Coffea arabica from IAPAR’s germplasm bank to Meloidogyne paranaensis. Two experiments were carried out in a greenhouse in IAPAR, Londrina, Paraná State, Brazil. A completely randomized design was used with 15 treatments, eight replications and one plant per plot. 14 accessions of C. arabica from Ethiopia were evaluated and the cultivar Mundo Novo IAC 376-4 was used as a susceptible control. Seedlings with three to four pairs of leaves were transplanted into plastic cups with a capacity of 700 mL and 1200 eggs and/or J2 of M. paranaensis (IP) were inoculated after one month. The evaluations were performed 130 days after inoculation, when the data of the number of eggs and J2 per gram of roots, the final population of nematodes (FP) were obtained and the reproduction factor (RF) was calculated using the formula: RF = IP / FP. To classify the resistance levels of the genotypes, the reduction of the reproduction factor (RRF) was used. The Ethiopian accessions were classified from highly resistant to highly susceptible. Most of the Ethiopian coffees were highly resistant to M. paranaensis. The genotype Geisha also showed resistance, but is still in heterozygous condition.

Evaluating the Sustainability Performance of Typical Conventional and Certified Coffee Production Systems in Brazil and Ethiopia Based on Expert Judgements

Increasing consumer awareness on sustainability issues has led to the growing adoption of voluntary sustainability standards in agriculture. This study assesses the sustainability performance of typical conventional and certified coffee production systems in Brazil and Ethiopia. We apply the SMART-Farm Tool, which represents an operationalization of the SAFA framework of FAO. Data collection was carried out through expert interviews and uncertainties were estimated using Monte-Carlo simulations. A higher sustainability performance of the certified systems was observed regarding product information (+37%) and transparency (+39%) in Ethiopia. In Brazil, the certified system showed an overall substantially increased performance compared to the conventional system in the environmental dimension and in some social and governance aspects, e.g. gender equality (+49%) and public health (+36%). Geographical or political conditions and farm type also had a strong influence on the observed sustainability performance. Typical smallholder production systems in Ethiopian coffee production mainly performed similarly in the environmental dimension since all were low-input systems due to economic constraints. The conventional Brazilian system showed a better performance concerning employment relations (+14%) and profitability (+13%), as compared to the certified Brazilian systems, because larger farms were more likely to employ permanent staff and profit from economies of scale.

A new analytical method for the simultaneous quantification of isoflavones and lignans in 25 green coffee samples by HPLC-MS/MS

Green coffee, the raw material of roasted coffee and coffee beverages, is one of the most widely traded commodities worldwide. There is a dearth of studies on its content in phytoestrogens such as isoflavones and lignans. Previously, we developed an efficient method for the simultaneous quantification of 6 isoflavones (daidzin, genistin, daidzein, genistein, formononetin and biochanin A) and 3 lignans (secoisolariciresinol, matairesinol and lariciresinol) in green coffee by using HPLC-MS/MS. Several extraction processes were evaluated and the best performing, base hydrolysis followed by enzymatic digestion, was validated and used to analyse 25 different coffee samples, 1 Coffea canephora and 24 Coffea arabica, from different countries. Lignans (total content: 286.5–8131.8 µg kg−1) were found in higher concentration than isoflavones (total content: 3.4–300.0 µg kg−1) and the most abundant were secoisolariciresinol (172.6–5714.1 µg kg−1) and lariciresinol (113.9–2417.7 µg kg−1). Notably, the Ethiopian coffee samples contained the highest levels of these compounds.

Review on Coffee Production and Marketing in Ethiopia

Coffee, Ethiopia’s largest export crop is the backbone of the Ethiopian economy. However, Ethiopia has not yet fully exploited its position as the producer of some of the best coffees in the world. Hence, a little information has been gathered on different aspects of the coffee with the objectives of reviewing coffee production and marketing in Ethiopia, and marketing actors and margin distribution of coffee in Ethiopia. Data from FAOSTAT, CSA and different published materials on coffee were used. According to the review, lack of competitiveness, lack of infrastructure, in adequate access to services, low value addition, in adequate technology transfer and research, competition of khat and rainfall variability are among major constraints of coffee production in Ethiopia. Price volatility, Poor accesses to market, little market promotion and incentive mechanism, and low price were reported to be the major problem of coffee marketing in Ethiopia. Licensing of more traders and inspecting their activities, enhancing infrastructural and institutional facilities and improving of coffee production technologies through development, and extension of improved coffee varieties and other related agronomic practices were among the major recommendations forwarded from the review. Keywords : Coffee, Ethiopia, Production, Marketing DOI: 10.7176/JMCR/67-02 Publication date: April 30 th 2020

Developing Ethiopian Yirgacheffe Coffee Grading Model using a Deep Learning Classifier

Coffee grading is the main procedure in producing homogenous local commercial fair system of pricing in the market and export. Grading coffee is a difficult task during the inspection, because it requires training and experience of the experts. In order to tackle grading difficulties in coffee producing industries and corporates have been employed and trained experts. Even if, those experts do not work effectively due to tiredness, costly, time consuming, inconsistency, bias and other factors. Digital image processing techniques based on automatically extracted features have been explored to classify Ethiopian coffee to corresponding quality grade labels. Samples of those coffee beans were taken from Yirgacheffe Coffee Farmers’ Cooperative Union. On average, 228 images were taken from each of three grade values or levels (grade 1, grade 2 and grade 3). The total number of images taken was 684 containing 6138 coffee beans. To extract coffee bean features and build a classification model for grading coffee, the state of art deep learning algorithm called convolutional Neural Network was used. Base on the experimental results classification accuracy obtained with testing coffee bean images for grade 1, grade 2 and grade 3 coffee beans was 99.51%, 97.56%, and 98.04%, respectively with the overall classification accuracy of 98.38%. This shows a promising result, even if, images are captured under the challenging condition without laboratory setup, such as illumination, different resolution, shadow and orientation which affects greatly the performance of the classifier and hence they are the future research direction that needs further investigations of noise removal techniques.

Option Pricing for Coffee Price Using Jump Diffusion Models

In this study, we aim at developing a model for option pricing to reduce the risks associated with Ethiopian coffee price fluctuations. We used daily closed Washed Sidama class A Grade3 (WSDA3) coffee price recorded in the period 31 May 2011 to 30 March 2018 obtained from Ethiopia commodity exchange (ECX) market to analyse the price fluctuation. The nature of log-returns of the price is asymmetric (negatively skewed) and exhibits high kurtosis. We used jump diffusion models for modeling and option pricing the coffee price. The method of maximum likelihood is applied to estimate the parameters of the models. We used the root mean square error (RMSE) to test the validation of the models. The values of RMSE for Merton's and double exponential jump diffusion models are 0.1093 and 0.0783, respectively. These results indicate that the models fit the data very well. We used analytical and Monte Carlo technique to find the call option pricing of WSDA3 price. Based on the empirical results, we concluded that double exponential jump diffusion model is more efficient than Merton's model for modeling and option pricing of this coffee price.

Traditional Ethiopian Coffee Ceremony in a Rural Ethiopian Hospital to Increase Hospital-based Delivery Rates

Traditional Ethiopian Coffee Ceremony in a Rural Ethiopian Hospital to Increase Hospital-based Delivery Rates

Differences in the effects of Kenyan, Tanzanian, and Ethiopian coffee intake on interstitial glucose levels measured by FreeStyle Libre: A pilot case study

BackgroundAlthough generally considered part of a healthy diet, coffee consumption has been suspected to be associated with elevated epinephrine levels and increasing insulin resistance.ObjectivesWe studied the effects of the intake of 3 different types of coffee (Tanzanian, Ethiopian, and Kenyan) on postprandial interstitial glucose levels.MethodInterstitial glucose levels were measured every 15 minutes using the FreeStyle Libre glucose monitoring system (Abbott Diabetes Care Ltd, Witney, United Kingdom) in each individual after drinking coffee compared with when not consuming coffee.ResultsUnlike Tanzanian and Ethiopian coffees, Kenyan coffee suppressed the increase of postprandial interstitial glucose levels. Kenyan coffee beans contain less anhydrous caffeine and more chlorogenic acid than Tanzanian and Ethiopian coffee beans. These findings may explain the different effects of these coffee types on postprandial interstitial glucose levels. Furthermore, Kenyan coffee beans inhibited α-glucosidase activity, which may partially explain why Kenyan coffee reduces postprandial interstitial glucose levels.ConclusionsCoffee is widely consumed as a beverage worldwide, and our findings suggest that patients with diabetes mellitus may benefit from drinking Kenyan coffee because of its ability to reduce postprandial interstitial glucose levels. (Curr Ther Res Clin Exp. 2020; 81:XXX–XXX)

English

Nutrients are essential for plant growth and development, and soil nutrient ratios play key roles in coffee quality. The objective of this study was to investigate the influence of soil nutrient ratios on the quality of wild Arabica coffee in Ethiopia. Results revealed that the balance between the soil nutrients was well correlated with coffee quality attributes. The balance between magnesium and calcium (Mg:Ca) and the balance between nitrogen and phosphorus (N:P) were found to be very important factors for bean size. Increase in Ca relative to Mg increased bean size, and vice versa. The higher the concentration of available P in relation to soil organic carbon (P:C) or total N (P:N), the better the cup quality of the coffee, and vice versa. The Mg:K ratio, P:N ratio, P:C ratio and P:Zn ratio were very important factors for cup quality. Although the ratio between Mg and K was important for cup quality, it was not apparent for bean size. The ratio between Ca and Mg was of no or little importance for coffee cup quality as opposed to that of bean size. Therefore, coffee growers should make careful decisions depending on the demands of the buyers/consumers and environmental requirements. Key words: Arabica coffee, bean size, cup quality, coffee forest, nutrient ratios.