Ethiopia obtains over $400 mln from coffee export

By Tesfa-alem Tekle

October 19, 2007 (ADDIS ABABA) — Ethiopia has collected 412 million US dollars from coffee export over the past Ethiopian year, the ministry of Agriculture and rural development Dessie Nure told walta news service.

He said “Ethiopia has exported a total of 176,000 tones of coffee to the united states and other European countries over the past Ethiopian year”

Ethiopia’s coffee is one of the best worldwide which accounts over 60% of the total foreign currency of the nation.

“The ministry said over 100 coffee exporters and unions were involved in the export”.

The Ethiopian coffee trade is very important to the culture of Ethiopia. Many Ethiopians and historians believe that the word coffee came from the Ethiopian word “kafa”. Coffee in Ethiopia has strong traditions that stem back to the 10th century, when coffee was discovered in Ethiopia.

The farming of coffee has strong traditions with Ethiopian families. Generations of people work on the farms. They believe that it is a great honor to farm coffee in their country. Half of the coffee produced in Ethiopia is consumed by Ethiopians.

Ethiopia has just resolved a dispute with the US-based Starbucks coffee chain over trademarks after the two sides agreed in principle to sign a licensing and marketing deal which recognises the country’s ownership of its premium varieties of coffee beans.

The agreement would extend the collaboration between the two on marketing Ethiopia’s superior quality coffees. Ethiopia has been in the hunt to trademark its speciality coffees – Harar, Sidamo and Yirgacheffe – from which its farmers would earn tens of millions of dollars in extra income each year, but has been frustrated by Starbucks.

In October 2006, the UK-based charity organisation Oxfam launched a campaign against Starbucks because of the chain’s opposition to Ethiopia’s intention to trademark its coffee beans in the United States.

(ST)