European Union Coffee Action for Ethiopia (EU-CAfE)

28.01.2025

Introduction:

Although Ethiopia is endowed with favourable agro-ecologies, rich coffee genetic diversity, and the indigenous knowledge of its farmers, the country is not gaining the most out of its coffee sector. This is due to a range of challenges, including limited access to extension services, fragmented linkages between research, extension, and farmers, inadequate access to inputs and financial services, a lack of market-driven standards, poor business management, limited market orientation, and expansion opportunities, the adverse impacts of climate change, and institutional capacity gaps that hinder effective policy implementation and service delivery.

Addressing these constraints is critical for improving Ethiopia’s coffee sector and unlocking its full potential to drive economic growth and improve the livelihoods of the coffee producers. To this end, the EU-Coffee Action for Ethiopia (EU-CAfE) project was designed to support and increase the coffee sector’s overall performance, productivity and to enable stakeholders to secure a fairer share of income and increase overall earnings from coffee, ultimately enabling the country to gain more from coffee export.

Objectives:

The main objective of the project is to sustainably increase income among Ethiopian small-holder coffee growers and processors.

The project seeks to achieve its objectives by improving smallholder access to research-driven technologies, strengthening their capacity to approach coffee farming as a business, and promoting specialty coffee production. Furthermore, it aims to build the capacity of both private and public actors to deliver efficient extension services and input support tailored to farmers’ needs and evolving international certification requirements. This also includes advancing organic, climate-friendly techniques and fostering compliance with the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) to support sustainable coffee value chains.

More specifically, the project seeks to:

support extension services and small farmers’ capacity building with proper research backstopping;
Improve smallholders’ access to high quality inputs, technologies, and credit;
Increase capacity for processing and marketing high quality coffees; and
Enhance the contribution of the coffee production system to sustainable environmental management to avert deforestation and climate change .

Project Activities:

The key activities are:

Enhancing Capacity: Strengthening the skills and knowledge of extension service providers and farmer groups in target woredas through capacity-building initiatives.
Training Programmes: Delivering training sessions based on the Best Practice System (BPS), which integrates modern coffee science with Ethiopian farmers’ indigenous knowledge (IK) of coffee production.
Provision of Resources: Supplying farmers with equipment, services, high-quality inputs, and advanced technologies to boost coffee productivity. This includes establishing a database system to support compliance with the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR).
Improving Processing and Marketing: Supporting producers and processors in enhancing their capacities for coffee processing, grading, and marketing.
Investments in Value Addition: Facilitating both on-farm and off-farm investments to add value to high-quality coffees, ensuring better access to specialty coffee export markets with a focus on meeting EUDR compliance requirements.
Awareness and Training on EUDR Compliance: Organizing awareness-raising activities, providing technical backstopping, and conducting training sessions on implementing EUDR compliance measures.
National Workshops: Hosting sensitization workshops at federal, regional, zonal, and woreda levels to ensure the effective implementation of the EUDR compliance action plan.

Expected Results:

Improved extension service and compliance with the EUDR;
Good performance of the Private-Public-Partnerships (PPP) solutions for enhanced access to inputs and technologies
Increased knowledge and skill in processing and grading high quality coffees as well as better negotiating capabilities;
A research system that avails high quality coffee varieties resistant to dry spells, diseases as well as with internationally recognized premium qualities defined in specific terroirs, or traceable specialty coffees;
Synergy between the public and the private sector operators for the production and marketing of high quality coffees compliant with EUDR increased.