EFFECTS OF THE STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENT PROGRAM ON THE PERFORMANCE OF THE COFFEE SECTOR IN ETHIOPIA: A CASE IN ALETA WONDO DISTRICT

Since the beginning of the 1990’s the Ethiopian economy is undergoing a transformation from a centrally planned to a more liberalized market economy.
In line with this, a number of policy changes that influence the structure, conduct and performance of the coffee sector have been undertaken.
The study investigates the sector’s performance encompassing production, domestic marketing and export of coffee in response to these policy changes.
Data and information were collected from interviews with coffee farmers, local traders, wholesalers and exporters.
The Structure-Conduct-Performance approach was applied as the analytical method for the study.
The result shows that lower taxes, devaluation of the local currency and domestic price deregulation have restored price incentives to the coffee growers.
In addition, the less restrictive licensing policy has contributed to raise the number of private traders and allowed higher competition in the domestic and export marketing of coffee.
However, abolishing of the specialized coffee extension service, and lack of rural credit and input supply institutions that support the efforts of the coffee farmers have resulted in reducing the quantity and quality of the country’s exportable coffee.
As a result, a sustained growth has not been observed in the coffee export performance yet.

XXVI International Horticultural Congress: Horticultural Science in Emerging Economies, Issues and Constraints

G. Abate, D. Hoermann, H. Tadesse

coffee producers, coffee traders, conduct, Ethiopian coffee, export performance, market participants, policy reform

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2003.621.3