East Timor Coffee Association established to promote Timorese Coffee

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East Timor coffee giant jointly established the first professional non-trade organization in East Timor's long history. Assosiasaun Caf é Timor-Leste, ACTL, East Timor Coffee Association

With support from the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Australian Market Development Fund (MDF), the project is partly driven by CQI members, using a model similar to that in Myanmar and Yemen in recent years to organize local farmers, improve agricultural processes and quality, promote, and direct marketing from place of origin to consumer markets.

More than 25 per cent of households in East Timor grow coffee and have great potential to improve production capacity and quality, "Paolo Spantigati, East Timor country director of the Asian Development Bank, described in a statement issued at the end of last month. "this private sector initiative will support the coffee sector in planning and implementing plans to improve farmers' livelihoods.

Coffee remains the former Portuguese colony's main export crop, and although the unit was squeezed by Indonesia in the 1980s and 1990s, the country's coffee industry has received assistance from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and other international development organizations since then, but production and exports remain historically low. Starbucks is a major buyer of Timorese coffee, but data and survey reports show that local farmers are generally poor and hungry.

Twenty-four key members held a seminar in Dili, the capital, from 19th to 23rd last month to discuss the vision, strategic plan, structure and governance model of the new association, and worked with Ted Lingle, founder and CQI consultant of the Fine Coffee Association of America, to promote the project. According to the ADB announcement, coffee farming groups, cooperatives, traders, exporters, bakeries and retailers participated in the week-long seminar.

ACTL's first major event will be a cup test competition and coffee festival, scheduled for December 1 this year, which will include professional talks and an exhibition of consumer products to market Timorese coffee.

In the announcement, ADB pointed out that East Timor is the origin of the Arabica variety Hibrido de Timor, which is well-known, high quality and high disease resistance in the coffee industry.

Original website: http://dailycoffeenews.com/2016/10/03/a-major-boost-for-timorese-coffee-as-timor-leste-coffee-association-forms/