Government of Angola wants to re-launch coffee production

Government of Angola wants to re-launch coffee production

2015 / 11 / 25

The government of Angola plans to relaunch coffee production in the country by supporting producers and renewing plantations, said Tuesday in Luanda the minister of Agriculture, Afonso Pedro Canga.

The minister was speaking at the 55th General Assembly of the Inter-African Coffee Organisation (IACO), which under the motto “gender and youth in the African coffee industry”, said that the introduction of technical support programmes to producers and research is also an area that needs focus in order to revive coffee cultivation.

Angola, an ICAO founding country in the 1970s was the world’s third largest coffee producer and currently the main African producers are Ethiopia, Uganda and Ivory Coast.

The minister said African coffee producers should take advantage of increased demand, which is expected to reach 200 million bags in 2030, to meet the supply deficit that is expected.

Canga noted that recent data released at the Global Coffee Forum showed that in 2030 world demand would be 200 million bags compared to current production of 149 million bags, so that “Africa can and should take advantage of this opportunity.”

The president of the International Coffee Organisation, Roberto Oliveira Silva, announced at the meeting of that the global coffee harvest in the 2014/15 season was estimated at 143.3 million bags, 2.3 percent less than in the previous season, which produced 149.2 million bags.

“However, consumption has grown hugely in the last 10 years, reaching 149.2 million bags in 2014,” said Oliveira Silva.

The Inter-African Coffee Organisation consists of 25 producing countries and was created in order to monitor and defend the role of the coffee crop in the socio-economic development of Africa. (macauhub/AO)