Kenya to hold International Coffee Council (ICO) meeting to discuss challenges facing sub-sectors

Professional coffee knowledge exchange more coffee bean information please follow the coffee workshop (Wechat official account cafe_style)

Kenya hosts international coffee summit to discuss challenges facing sub-sectors

Nairobi, 22 March-Kenya will hold its 124th International Coffee Council (ICO) meeting next week to discuss the challenges facing the sub-sector, Kenyan officials said Friday.

Joseph Kieyah, chairman of the organizing committee, said that more than 4000 local and international representatives will attend the March 25-29 summit hosted by Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta.

"the meeting will help open Kenyan coffee to external markets, especially now we look forward to increasing annual production of the crop from 46121 metric tons to 92000 metric tons over the next five years," Kieyah told reporters in Nairobi.

He said Kenya was committed to reforming the coffee industry to ensure benefits to small farmers.

Kenya will host the first global coffee summit because the ICO was established in 1963 to bring together exporters and importers to meet the challenges facing commodities.

Hamadi Boga, chief research secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Research, points out that Kenya has established several mechanisms to reverse the coffee industry.

"We used to produce the best specialty coffee in the world, but our production has been declining for years because many problems force small farmers to ignore cash crops in pursuit of more profitable options," Boga said.

He revealed that the government had set up a coffee sector implementation committee with a mandate to provide strategic leadership for the implementation of the reform of the coffee sub-sector.

He revealed that the new coffee rules are now in place and will be submitted to the Attorney General's Office for bulletin next weekend.

ICO member governments account for 98 per cent of global coffee production and 67 per cent of global consumption. As of June 2018, the organization had 50 members.

"We are taking a series of measures to address the global challenges facing the coffee industry," said Jose Sette, executive director of ICO.

He said that ICO is working to strengthen the global coffee industry and promote its sustainable development in the market environment to improve all participants in the coffee industry.

END