5 year plan for the Zimbabwean coffee industry

People within the Zimbabwean coffee industry have come up with a brand new five year plan to revive production in the country, aiming to boost income for over 50,000.

After a number of successive droughts, limited irrigation, infrastructure and funding, combined with a lack of general expertise in the sector, Zimbabwe has seen their coffee levels dramatically fall in recent years. At one point the crop, the world’s second most traded commodity, used to be the country’s fifth highest foreign currency earner; today it’s nowhere near those lofty heights of old.

Located in the coffee belt and with plenty of advantageous geographical features, the elevated Easter Highland regions of Chipinge, Chimanimani, Mutare and Mutasa used to house a number of plantations

Over two decades ago now, those hills and valleys grew Arabica, which was once believed to be some of the finest available on the market.

But, times and political circumstances change.

Last year, speaking to News24, Gifford Trevor, the president of Zimbabwe’s Coffee Growers Association, pushed the notion the dire economic facts that the nation “is losing billions of dollars annually as the price of coffee to about $3 per pound, up from $1 per pound in the 1990s.”

It is hoped that a new strategy – which will involve the continued maintenance of existing plantations, the procurement of around 11,500 acres of new land for growing coffee and developing current infrastructure – will revitalise the flagging industry.

Funding, it is reported, will come from both the private sector and foreign investors.

Dr Ignatius Chombo, the Acting Minister of Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development, has urged potential financiers to take advantage of the current global desire for coffee.

“Coffee is an important crop for Zimbabwe with tremendous potential for employment creation.

“The ministry will provide the necessary policy support to enable the growth of the coffee sub-sector and support research and development,” he said at the Coffee Strategy Verification Workshop, which was held late last week.