Africa-Press – Tanzania. THE Kilimanjaro Regional Commissioner (RC) Mr Stephen Kagaigai has called on the Tanzania Coffee Board (TCB) to work with other coffee stakeholders to iron out and identify challenges facing farmers.
The RC wants TCB and stakeholders to address the challenges to ensure the crop production sustainability and quality. Mr Kagaigai made the call recently in Moshi, Kilimanjaro while closing the second Kahawa Festival event which drew coffee stakeholders from inside and outside the country.
“The challenges should be identified so that they can be addressed for the betterment of coffee production in the country. “International statistics show that three billion cups of coffee are consumed every day, this means that there is a huge market for this crop that we should work on produce coffee and be participants in that market”.
Regarding the Kahawa Festival 2021 exhibition, Mr Kagaigai said it was a productive innovation as far as coffee production and trade was concerned in the country, and hailed TCB and other stakeholders for introducing the annual event.
He also called on the members of the Kahawa Festival organising committee to continue co-operating with TCB management even after the exhibition in promoting coffee consumption in the country in order to increase local consumption of coffee.
The TCB Chairperson, Prof Aurelia Kamuzora, said the board was continuing with efforts to find new markets of the crop, especially outside the country to boost the economy growth.
“The increase in new participants in coffee production will increase output. Also we are working hard to seek new markets including potential ones in the Far East including China,” she said.
The Chairman of coffee stakeholders in the country Mr Ressy Mashulano said the future plans of the festival centred on involving more coffee farmers who work direct from the fields.
“This will increase awareness and importance of coffee they are farming due to the exposure they get at the exhibition from other participants from both inside and outside including buyers and consumers”, he said.
Mr Mashulano said there were needs to start mobilising the importance of cultivating and consuming coffee in schools starting from the primary to universities.
The move, he said, would help increase both production and consumption of coffee in the future.
