The decline of the price of coffee in the international market in recent years has been a headache to cash crop exporting countries like Ethiopia. The country has suffered the worst lot due to the fall in coffee prices in the international market.

It is common knowledge that Ethiopia has largely depended on the export of coffee for its foreign currency earnings and the fall in the price would have a serious bearing on the performance of the overall economy.

In 2000/2001 fiscal year, the country exported about 98.239 tons of coffee, thereby generating 180 million USD. The volume increased to 106.246 tons in 2001/2002 but it brought only 154 million USD. However, this negative development could not just be attributed to the decline in the price of coffee in the international market. It had also to do with the quality in the processing and packaging of this natural export item.

Recently, coffee farmers in Kaffa Zone, south Ethiopia, have started selling dried organic coffee to a German company, GEO. The Company has received 200 quintals of dried organic coffee and ordered more to be ready.

What buyers of organic coffee in the West do is that they would send their experts to coffee producing places like Kaffa and Sidamo, where they would seriously examine whether the coffee produced in these areas is real organic coffee. So if that is the case, and if that is what they want, then Ethiopia is not in short supply of organic coffee because the farmers in these areas do not use fertilizers or other chemical things to grow coffee.

The effort being made by the Coffee Union, an organization formed by coffee cooperatives, in promoting Ethiopia's organic coffee and in obtaining standard certification for the product, is quite praiseworthy. The Union has, for the past two years, been in contact with both farmers in Ethiopia and potential coffee importers in the West. It gives expertise advise to farmers to focus on quality organic coffee instead of mass production, and convince the importers to send their experts to see the reality on the ground.

This is the kind of effort that is required to sell Ethiopia's organic coffee and thereby come out from the foreign currency crisis. This would also mean that those farmers who are getting rid of their coffee plantation and substituting it by chat (the mild stimulant leaf) for lack of market would come back to the production of quality coffee. We should, therefore, focus on the production of quality coffee instead of just mass production if we are to attract importers. Ethiopia's organic coffee is already getting the attention of importers in the West. As those engaged in the business are saying, there are more orders coming.