2024-07-07 22:01:23
In Ivory Coast, coffee production fell by 61.6% between the first nine months of 2022 and the first nine months of 2023, according to the Directorate of Forecasts, Policies and Economic Statistics (DPPSE). Due to low prices in recent years, but also the rise in labor costs, growing coffee has been abandoned by many farmers.
From our special correspondent in Tiassalé region,
Poor weather conditions, agricultural drought, very low farm gate prices… Adro Kouassi Nestor, a farmer from the Ivory Coast, lists several reasons why he is gradually leaving his coffee trees. : ” This is the price set by the Coffee-Cocoa Commission for cocoa and coffee, it is also labor that is becoming scarce. And this is what caused coffee production to fall.. Because cooking in coffee fields is very hard, especially at harvest time. “He pursued:” And if you don’t have human power, you can’t do it. And then the price is not encouraging. Of course, this means that coffee is being neglected in favor of other crops, such as cocoa. and rubber trees. »
The farmer walks through his 50 square meter field, the coffee cherries are ripe. But he tried to find farm workers to pick him up. Red worms confuse the polluters, long and careful selection which must be done in several stages. ” You go step by step to choose. You have to bring the very ripe ones backhe explained. So, it’s all problems. »
Abandoned coffee grounds that could cause a robusta shortage
Obstacles and a lot of time to spend which motivates him and sometimes leads him to not even take his harvest. ” At my level, I give less importance to coffee. I made a point. When it’s ripe and I don’t find anyone to take it, for the time it will take me [pour ramasser] and how much money people will pay, I want to leave », concluded Adro Kouassi Nestor. This is without the partial return of the farm gate price set by the City at 900 CFA francs per kilo for the 2023-2024 campaign, compared to 700 CFA francs in the previous year.
Etienne Papou is a coffee farmer and cocoa certification specialist. He noticed effects of climate change on crops. « It is true that in recent years, the price of coffee has increased considerably, but some producers have cut coffee beans to replace them either with rubber, or palm, or with cocoa. The few who cared for the coffee plants abandoned them and became desolate “, he revealed.
Ivory Coast produces an exceptional amount of robusta, between 50 and 100,000 tons per year, three times less than in the 1970s. Globally, robusta production is also declining. Climate change directly threatens the coffee industry;
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