Coffee Farmers Taking to Hills
African coffee production will retreat from record highs in 2016-17 but will remain high – helped by a climb by farmers to higher altitudes in the face of climate change fears.
Africa's main four coffee-growing countries – Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda – will see production drop by nearly 1.0m bags to 11.97m bags to 2016-17, US Department of Agriculture foreign staff said in their first estimates for the season.
The decline will reflect drops in both output of arabica beans - which account for the majority of African output, and indeed originated in Ethiopia - and robusta crops in some countries, as a hangover from the latest, bumper harvest.
Shashank Gupta