13th May 2020 – Though the COVID-19 pandemic is primarily a public health emergency, its effects ripple across all aspects of life – not least in global supply chains for agricultural commodities we used to take for granted. ACCORD East Africa Project Manager, Amos Wanyiri, looks at the impact of the pandemic on coffee producers… (continued)
Coffee is often sold as a ‘blend’, a mix of coffee beans from a number of sources, sometimes even from a number of different countries. Increasingly, however, many coffee drinkers have a preference for where their coffee comes from. They insist that they must have a cup of Kenyan, or Colombian coffee, possibly due to… (continued)
Does Kenya need to ‘bet the farm’ on Arabica coffee farming? Coffee exports have been declining for years, and haven fallen way behind the values achieved from tea and horticulture for this growing East African economy. But it is still a major cash crop. With estimates of up to 5 million people directly or indirectly… (continued)
Coffee exports are hugely important for the Kenyan economy. It is estimated that there are over 700,000 smallholder coffee farmers in the country, as well as around 3,000 large estate farms. Kenya is renowned for high quality Arabica coffee, and despite producing less coffee per year than its peak in the 1990s, it maintains its… (continued)
Africa once dominated the global coffee market. At the height of their production, African countries made up four of the top 10 coffee-producing countries in the world. However, exports from the continent have shrunk in recent years. African coffee-producing countries have struggled to keep up with strong competition from coffee powerhouses like Brazil and Vietnam,… (continued)
Collecting and analysing large amounts of data is revolutionising almost every industry. The surge in accessibility to data means that we have a much greater analytical capacity for almost any process, device, or phenomenon that can be measured. Manufacturers are capturing data about each and every step in their production in order to maximise its… (continued)