cabi and coffee
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CABI and CoffeeTRANSCRIPT
CABI and coffeeWe are experts in coffee. We work with farmers, traders, researchers and policy makers. To aid production and help make the whole chain, from farmers to consumers, more efficient.
Over 70% of the world’s supply of coffee is provided by smallholder farmers, who rely on it for their living. However, there are many factors which can mean many go hungry; whether it is because of prices for their coffee, pests and diseases, poor production techniques or inefficient trade and quarantine to name but a few. Nobody quite knows how many farmers produce coffee throughout the world, although the figure of 25 million is sometimes given with more than 100 million directly or indirectly dependent on it.
Some producer countries like Ethiopia, Rwanda and Burundi, rely on coffee for a large part of their foreign exchange earnings.
Coffee is the most valuable tropical agriculture crop. Currently, the value per year is likely to exceed $20 billion.
We calculate that for one disease alone, coffee wilt disease, which is currently confined to four countries, has cost farmers over $1billion in lost earnings over the past 20 years.
The impacts of our work to date include:
• building of expertise and capacity in coffee producing countries
• improving on-farm practices through enhanced farmer understanding of alternative, ecologically sound agronomic methods and better ways of using pesticides
• helping coffee producing regions to understand quarantine issues more fully and more able to respond to them
• increased coffee productivity, quality and returns to farmers, traders and ultimately national economies, leading to improved livelihoods
CABI has worked on coffee for over 90 years, making a real difference to smallholder growers around the world
KNOWLEDGE FOR LIFE
With thanks to our partners and donors who include:
Anecafé
Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA)
Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR)
Caisses de Stabilisation et de Péréquation (CAISTAB), Gabon
Cenicafé
Central Coffee Research Institute, Coffee Board of India
Centre de Coopération Internationall en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement (CIRAD)
Centre National de Recherche agronomique (CNRA), Cote D’Ivore
Chipinge Coffee Research Station, Department of Agriculture Research, Zimbabwe
Coffee Industry Corporation (CIC)
Coffee Research Centre (COREC), Uganda
Coffee Research Foundation, Kenya
Common Fund for Commodities (CFC)
Comité de Coordination pour les Filières Café et Cacao (CCFCC), Togo
European Union
Fédération Nationale des Exportateurs et Producteurs de Café/Cacao, Guinée
Indian Coffee Board
Indonesian Cocoa and Coffee Research Institute (ICCRI)
Institute for Agricultural Research for Development (IRAD), Cameroon
InterAfrican Coffee Organisation (IACO)
International Coffee Organisation (ICO)
Jimma Agriculture Research Centre (JARC), Ethiopia Institute of Agriculture Research (EIAR), Ethiopia
Kenya Coffee Board
Lunyangwa Agriculture Research Station, Department of Agriculture Research, Malawi
Ministry of Agriculture & Rural Development of Cameroon
Ministry of Agriculture Indonesia (MOAI)
National Agricultural Quarantine Inspection Authority (NAQIA) of PNG
National Crops Resources Research Institute (NACRRI), Uganda
National Agriculture Research Organization (NARO), Uganda
Sciences Agronomique du Rwanda (ISAR), Rwanda
Office National de Café et Cacao (National Coffee and Cocoa Board), Cameroon
Office National du Café (ONC), Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) PROMECAFE
Rwanda Agriculture Board (RAB), Ministry of Agriculture, Rwanda University of New South Wales
Tanzania Coffee Research Institute (TaCRI), Tanzania
University of Kinshasa, DRC
World Bank
Contact:
Julie Flood, Global Director Commodities, CABI, Bakeham Lane, Egham, Surrey, TW20 9TY, United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)1491 829043 Email: [email protected]
www.cabi.org
KNOWLEDGE FOR LIFEwww.cabi.org
Investigating for coffee berry borer, PNG Roasted coffee beans
Coffee green scale, PNG Drying coffee beans, Rwanda
Market, RwandaCoffee drying, EthiopiaCoffee leaf rust, India Coffee farming, AngolaInvestigating coffee leaf rust, Rwanda
case study: Coffee green scale in
Papua New Guinea
The foreign coffee green scale insect is estimated to cause 10% - 50% losses in
coffee yields, severely affecting the amount of coffee farmers have to sell. The
insect colonises the leaves and stems of the plant and feeds on its sap, which
in turn affects bean density and quality. The demand for high quality ‘niche’
coffee from Papua New Guinea (PNG) is growing and farmers need the tools to
manage this destructive pest in a sustainable and cost effective way.
To tackle the problem, scientists from CABI, the University of New South
Wales and PNG Coffee Industry Corporation (CIC) are examining factors that
may be causing the spread and growth of scale populations and developing
management interventions. Working with local smallholders, researchers have
also collected information about existing farmer knowledge and controls, so that
this can be utilized and possibly expanded over wider coffee growing areas.
It is now clear that some highly invasive ant species are exacerbating the problem.
These ants interfere with local natural enemies which help control the scale
populations. It also appears scales are spread by coffee seedlings from nurseries.
case study: Coffee leaf rust in India and AfricaCoffee production, hugely important to smallholder farmers, is constrained by a number of pests and diseases. Coffee leaf rust is a major one. Caused by the fungus Hemileia vastatrix, the disease causes leaves to develop yellow spots on the underside and drop prematurely, and reduces the coffee bean yield by around 40%. In severe cases, coffee leaf rust will kill the coffee tree entirely. Smallholders often cannot afford pesticides so we initiated a project to reduce the economic and environmental costs of disease control and reduce crop losses caused by the disease.CABI is implementing a project in India, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and Zimbabwe, assessing the impact of the disease on production, and how farmers responded. CABI and national scientists are developing and conserving healthy breeding stocks and making recommended varieties available to farmers.Coffee varieties are being exchanged between the countries involved and are being evaluated for, growth, vigour, yield and the quality of the end product – a cup of coffee. Farmers are taking an active role in running field trials and are attending farmer field schools to test using environmentally benign fungicides and other agents to help control the disease. We are spreading the information we gather amongst stakeholders within each country, and at an international level.
case study: Coffee quality
For developing countries, coffee is a vitally important commodity, and millions
of rural poor depend on it for their livelihoods. Despite its importance however,
global prices are highly volatile. Better quality coffee can be sold at a significantly
higher price, providing a considerable opportunity to improve farmers’ incomes
and open more market opportunities.
Traditional methods of processing coffee cherries often produces poor quality
coffee which lacks flavour and aroma. But, over the years, we have done
many projects across Africa on increasing the quality of coffee produced by
smallholder farmers. We look at the whole growing and processing system
including: establishing effective farms with seedlings and tools; providing
farmers with the right knowledge and skills to grow and process coffee; and
rehabilitating processing factories; and finally marketing the resultant coffee.
We have also helped make the seedlings of improved varieties and loans for
fertilizers available, and have helped establish and provide assistance to those
associated with the coffee industry. Furthermore, we have worked to establish
secure markets for the high quality coffee.
case study: Coffee berry borerThe coffee berry borer (Hypothenemus hampei) is the world’s most widespread
and damaging insect pest of coffee. It develops inside the maturing coffee
berry, making it difficult for farmers to control and causing the beans to weigh
less, drop prematurely and results in a reduction in quality for harvestable
berries. Production losses of at least US$500 million per year have been
estimated. Although the incidence of coffee berry borers can vary, the pest can
cause severe economic hardship in heavily affected areas. This ACIAR funded project applies CABI’s vast experience in coffee berry borer
management to address the problem in Indonesia and prevent it occurring
in Papua New Guinea. We’ll do this by encouraging better management, and
by putting in place prevention and incursion procedures where the pest is not
yet known to occur. Coffee berry borer management in Indonesia emphasizes
situation-specific surveillance and awareness, appropriate integrated pest
management research (such as cultural methods including crop sanitation and
pest trapping) as well as the application of biocontrol agents. We will also train
farmers in the latest technology by using a participatory approach. Indonesian
farmers’ practical knowledge of coffee berry borer and its management have
already significantly improved following on farm participatory trials and training.
In Papua New Guinea, we are emphasizing quarantine procedures where we
are building capacity, encouraging early detection and emergency responses.