The International Trade Centre (ITC) has unveiled the Amharic translation of the fourth edition of the practical source for the international coffee trade, The Coffee Guide.
The ITC launched the Coffee Guide in Addis Ababa today through its Alliances for Action initiative.
According to the ITC, the seminal publication builds on collaboration with more than 70 coffee industry actors from across the globe, from seed to cup, to chart a path towards a more sustainable future for the industry.
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The 4th edition updates the latest trends of the last decade, especially for quality, digitalization, climate change, finance and risk, and consumer preferences.
It presents fresh industry data that classify production and consumption numbers by coffee quality segment such as standard, premium, and specialized, rather than the traditional Arabica/Robusta classification of data.
“This is our first-ever Amharic version of the Coffee Guide, part of our move to more actively include coffee stakeholders in Ethiopia, the birthplace of coffee,’ said Pamela Coke-Hamilton, ITC Executive Director.
With the addition of the Amharic edition, the Coffee Guide can now be accessed globally in 5 languages including English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish.
“We’ve been providing neutral, hands-on information on the global coffee value chain for decades,” Coke-Hamilton said. “This latest edition puts a special focus on how product quality matches up with its impact on the environment and the lives of people behind the cup.”
Last year, Ethiopia earned 1.4 billion dollars in coffee exports alone, a record in the country’s export history unprecedented amount.”
“The backbone of this success is our smallholder coffee farmers, and we must give back to them,” State Minister of Agriculture Sofia Kassa said.
At least 2.2 million of the world’s 12.5 million coffee farms are found in Ethiopia where the bean represents millions of livelihoods, a quarter of its export earnings. The country consumes half of what it produces.
The Amharic edition of the Coffee Guide is designed to be a practical tool for producers, exporters, and other value chain stakeholders to support a positive transformation of the sector, according to the ITC.
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It says regional trade, value addition at origin, digitalization, knowledge sharing, and green practices are some of the transformative solutions that can be leveraged to help the bean rise to its rightful place in the global coffee sector.
Coffee Guide explores these solutions and other crucial sector topics, the ITC said, adding that the Ethiopian Tea and Coffee Authority will integrate the Guide in its capacity building and training curricula, using it as an education tool to increase the competitiveness of smallholder coffee farmers throughout Ethiopia’s unions and cooperatives.
