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Edgar Vhera-Agriculture Specialist Writer

THE country’s coffee exports rose 42 percent from 124 tonnes in the first half of 2023 to 176 tonnes in the comparable period this year as El Nino drought cut 2024 production.

The January to June statistics released by the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (ZimStats) show that coffee exports rose from 123 864 to 176 160 kilogrammes.

The earnings however, rose only by 20 percent from US$651 863 to US$781 924 weighed down by the decline in average selling price.

The average price dropped 16 percent from US$5, 26 to US$4, 44 per kilogramme.

The country’s coffee is exported as not roasted or decaffeinated, coffee husks and skins as well as substitutes containing coffee.

Meanwhile, the Horticultural Development Council’s (HDC) recently released Zimbabwe coffee outlook said growers were bracing for a challenging year due to decline in yield brought about by the El Nino induced drought.

“Farmers are expecting a decline in production from 450 tonnes in 2023 to between 300 and 350 this year.

“The severe drought has hit coffee plantations this year, coupled with some farmers’ plans to remove older trees, next year’s output may even be lower than 300 tonnes,” said the outlook.

The outlook said production is projected at 400 tonnes in 2026 with this recovery relying on the timely provision of adequate inputs to smallholder farmers.

TechnoServe coffee programme manager, Dr Midway Bhunu concurred saying the drought had significantly affected this year’s output.

“Coffee output was severely affected by drought as some of the plants were at flowering and berry expansion stage when the drought set in.

“Other farmers had a double blow as they had an over berrying crop (twice crop fruit production), as coffee goes into annual berrying cycles alternating between high and low,” said Dr Bhunu.

The unavailability of water at fruit stage causes a dieback.

Dr Bhunu said coffee plantations need water for irrigation with every tree requiring about 30 litres of water per every two weeks depending on soil types and other moisture management practices such as mulching.

“In the past irrigation was not a major issue, but due to climate change its now important as plants go for nine months without water. Most coffee areas in the past used to get winter rains of up to 100 millilitres and such plantation crops who continue in good shape until the October rains come,” Dr Bhunu added.

He thinks much of the current crop will be able to recover if the country gets effective early rains (above 20 millilitres) in October to allow farmers to apply fertiliser in November and a bumper harvest will be possible due to the predicted La Nina season.

Climate change has affected the coffee calendar with harvesting now starting six weeks earlier (in April) instead of the normal June time period.

“After harvesting coffee goes under primary processing (de-skinning), fermentation and drying into the parchment form and for smallholder farmers it ends there.

“From parchment it goes into dry mills to remove the outer skin through hulling to produce the green coffee which is now exported by big companies,” Dr Bhunu expounded.

He said the country was exporting value and not adding any value, thereby remaining price takers on the market.

Zimbabwe is a small player in the global coffee market and big roasters dictate the price and locally there is a small coffee drinking culture for roasted coffee with only about five percent consumed and the rest exported.