Assessment of Coffee Quality and Its Related Problems in Jimma Zone of Oromia Regional State

Abstract

Arabica coffee (Coffee arabica L.) is an economically important crop, which is contributing the highest of all export revenues in Ethiopia. It is also the major cash crop of Jimma Zone and produced in eight woredas. Despite the favorable climatic conditions, variety of coffee types and long history of its production in this Zone, quality of coffee is poor due to traditional poor pre and post harvest practices. Efforts were made so far in areas of fermentation time, drying depth, time of storage and extension support, training for coffee expertise and coffee farmers on recommended technologies. But there is lack of profound assessment works to identify the specific coffee quality problems in Jimma zone and lack of adequate information on the effects of post harvest processing and handling techniques on coffee quality. Therefore, the study was conducted with the objectives of assessing the impact of pre and post harvest processing practices on the quality of both wet and dry processed coffee, identifying the inherent quality of coffee in the zone and investigating socio-economic technical and institutional factors related to coffee quality problems in the zone. For field survey, 164 household farmers were randomly selected following sample size determination procedures of probability proportional to size technique and 30 coffee traders were purposefully selected from the two woredas and interviewed in the study area from November to December 2008. The data collected from the field survey were analyzed by employing the statistical procedures of SPSS version 14.0. A binary logit model was employed for the factors affecting adoption of coffee quality pre and post harvest management practices (CQPPHMP). A total of 14 explanatory variables were used for the binary logit model out of which 6 variables were significant to affect the adoption of CQPPHMP practices by the coffee farmers whereas none of the explanatory variables for sampled traders were found to be significant in the chi-square analysis except checking quality for price. In binary logistic regression analysis of field survey obtained from coffee farmers those factors that affect coffee quality were disease prevalent in coffee field, compost application, mixing up of differently harvested coffee during selling, availability of storage, drying materials used for drying and age of coffee in the store. The findings of this study indicate that any effort in promoting and adopting of CQPPHMP practice should recognize the socio-economic, institutional, and technical factors for better adoption of CQPPHMP practices. On the other hand, a total of 32 coffee bean samples (16 from each woreda) were prepared for the laboratory analysis (organoleptic and bean physical quality characteristics) at Jimma Agricultural Research Center (JARC). The laboratory experiment was arranged in split plot design, considering the processing method as main plot and the preparation type as sub-plot in RCBD with three replications and organoleptic quality attributes were assessed by trained coffee panelists. The laboratory data analysis was computed by using general linear model (GLM) procedures of SAS version 9.2. It was observed that wet processing method resulted in high mean values for good cup quality attributes, like acidity, body and flavor, and for bean physical quality attributes, like odor as compared to dry processing method. For most of sensorial quality attributes, recommended preparation procedure outsmarted local preparation (farmers/traders) methods. For physical quality attributes, preparation methods were varied only for color and odor. Nonetheless, of the processing methods investigated in this study, it was observed that the recommended way of preparing coffee promotes the typical quality profile to the final cup quality to meet consumers’ choice that finally creates interest for the profile and competence in the international coffee market. From this result, it can be concluded that wet processing method is the best approach to obtain fine and typical flavor in the cup to meet the interest and preference of consumers. Extension intervention could be the best approach to create awareness among coffee producers towards maintaining typical coffee quality profile of their garden through processing that finally adds value to their produces.