An Encouraging Outlook For The Coffee Market

Members of the global coffee community gathered in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa for two days of discourse at the 4^th World Coffee Conference.

Over 900 people from 77 member countries attended thfe event, which was headlined by 20 high-level speakers who led and encouraged debate and discussion on issues relating to the conference’s overarching theme, ‘Nurturing coffee culture and diversity’.

Some of the topics covered during the event included gender equality within the coffee industry and the role that the public sector could play in improving the quality of coffee farms.

During the Conference, the Executive Director if the International Coffee Organisation, Roberio Oliveira Silva, presented a detailed outlook for the global coffee market.

In his speech, he announced that the ICO’s current estimate for coffee production for the 2015-16 season stood at 143.3 million 60kg bags, a 1.4% increase in last year’s number.

Oliveira Silva said that despite output from Brazil (the world’s largest coffee producing country) decreasing, this loss was offset by increases in Colombia, Vietnam and Indonesia.

In Africa, production levels are on the increase, though it was released that the Ethiopian coffee industry is likely to record a 3.4% loss.

Looking further forward, the ICO’s Executive Director spoke positively and insinuated that Brazil is likely to rebound from this year’s poor crop.

He said that Brazil’’s National Food Supply Company (CONAB) has estimated that production in the country could top 51 million 60kg bags in the year 2016-17, which could be the biggest harvest ever recorded by the South American giant.