Knowledge and Attitude of Small holder Coffee Producing Farmers to Coffee Quality: The Case of Oromiya and South Nations Nationalities and Peoples Regional States, Ethiopia

Abstract

In time bound when nobody was sure how Coffee arabica is originally discovered, farmers in Ethiopia have been growing quality coffee in the untamed forests of Kaffa and Buno areas. As a result, coffee is an important source of genetic resource for the world where Ethiopia stands as the Africa’s leading producer and domestic consumer and the World’s fifth largest producer of coffee. Despite its earliest establishment, a series of complaints are reported from this origin of coffee legend which even resulted in to rejection of export consignments. Correspondingly, there is no comprehensive study conducted to identify the contribution of smallholder farmers’ knowledge on coffee quality. To this effect, eighteen variables were assessed by the survey and the result signified ten variables were found significant at (P<0.10) probability level. Form these variables, market distance, distance to washing stations, frequency of training and actors’ efforts to improve quality were important to influence coffee quality. Similarly of the 12 items selected items for comparison in attitude scale, primary actors involved in quality improvement, awareness of quality trend, skill and knowledge of farmers were important items that affected coffee quality. The finding has also indicated farmers had virtually low information regarding quality beans they produced and their social, institutional, economical and psychological factors differ across the study areas and among respondents. These necessitated strengthening linkages among institutions so as to popularize the already available technologies