Coffee farmers across the East African bloc are keenly following the seemingly unforgiving trend of falling coffee prices as reported by Kenya’s Nairobi Coffee Exchange (NCE).
The Nairobi Coffee Exchange said Thursday that coffee prices had plunged by 9% attributed to low quality coffee beans and a drop in supply.
With the surge in devastating effects of Covid-19 pandemic, the global demand and consumption of coffee has significantly dropped just like other sectors of the economy are suffering.
Statistics from NCE indicate that a 50kg bag of coffee was sold at Sh25,164 down from Sh27,233 in the previous sale at the auction.
“The prices have gone down a bit because of declining quality but we still see this as good earnings given the quality of beans that we are getting now,” NCE said on Thursday.
The lower volumes saw the NCE skip a week of trading in order to accumulate enough volumes to enable the auction to be conducted after gaining enough quantities.
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Auction resumed from recess almost two months ago after closing for a month when the main crop season from central Kenya came to an end.
Kenya says its Coffee earnings dropped by Sh2.5 billion in eight months to May on account of low volumes as the quantities offered at the trading floor were impacted by the closure of auction floor by the Health ministry as a mitigation measure to curb Covid-19.
The coffee year begins in October. NCE data indicated that the cash crop fetched Sh7.8 billion in the review period, down from Sh10.3 billion in the same period last year.
The decline in earnings resulted from a sharp drop in volumes, which were down 32 percent compared with the previous period.
Original article on Taarifa Rwanda