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Ethiopian coffee farmers union to introduce quality coffees to Chinese consumers
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The Sidama Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union's newly appointed General Manager, Ashenafi Argaw, recently left for Beijing to participate at a coffee fair trade conference and introduce the Union's quality coffee produces to Chinese consumers and buyers.
Ashenafi will also introduce the Union's activities and experience in coffee fair trade, as well as the challenges coffee farmers in the country are facing due to unfair trade. The Manager, who will be the only Coffee farmers Union representative from the African continent invited to the conference, said he would take the opportunity to look for and attract prospective Chinese buyers.
"The Chinese people are increasingly becoming coffee consumers, and they are emerging coffee buyers within the country which will make the nation a new market for coffee producers and processors. The latest opportunity was the result of a similar presentation I made at the Colorado Coffee Fair Trade Conference, which helped to facilitate the invitation I received from Beijing,” Ashenafi said.
Sidama Coffee Farmers produce approximately 35,000 tones of high quality Organic Arabica beans (60 percent of which is washed) per year, on 70,000 hectares of land, according to the Union. Over 70,000 coffee farmers are exporting their products through the Sidama Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union.
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