Jamaica To Get A Helping Hand From The IFC

With the price of Jamaican coffee at an all-time high, you would expect that the island’s coffee industry is flourishing and recording breaking revenues.

Unfortunately, that isn’t the case. Earnings are all-time low thanks to horrendously low harvests, Jamaica Gleaner reports.

Back in 2009 Jamaica exported $33.8m worth of coffee, but last year exports only brought in $13.4m.

This range strange situation has led the financing arm of the World Bank, the IFC, to launch a support project for the country’s coffee sector that is reportedly worth $560,000.

The scheme will aid coffee processors and exporters in a bid to breathe new life into the industry.

“The overall goal of the project is to contribute to establishing the conditions to preserve the Jamaican coffee brand and protect [the livelihoods of] smallholder coffee farmers by maintaining the quality and increasing the quantity of coffee,” the IFC said in a statement.

Despite being officially launched last week, the project actually began back in January and the IFC has been working alongside Coffee Traders and the Jamaica Coffee Exporters Association (JCEA).

JCEA chairman, Jason Sharp, spoke very positively about this working relationship.

“They are working with the JCEA to assist the association in its drive to modernise the industry in farmer registration and access to micro-financing,” Sharp said.

“We have been working together…but I know [the] IFC has been working with various other entities, including assisting with a seedling programme.”

The seedling programme that Sharp reference should, hopefully, allow farmers to replant their fields with new crops to help increase yields. A target of 75-100 boxes of coffee per acre has been set and experts believe that current levels are at least half that figure at this moment in time.

“Farmers are getting record prices now, but it’s coming from two years of drought and rust disease, so productivity is low. The IFC programme is a good thing,” one farmer said.