Determinants Of Coffee Quality In West Wallaga Zone Of Oromia Regional State

Abstract

Coffee Arabica is an economically important crop, which is contributing the highest of all export revenues in Ethiopia. West wallaga is one of the major coffee producing zones of Oromia region. But there is lack of profound assessment works to identify the specific coffee quality problems in the zone and lack of adequate information on the effects of harvest and post harvest handling and processing techniques on coffee quality. Therefore, this study was conducted with an objective of identifying determinants of coffee quality of the study area. The sampling technique used to draw peasant associations (kebele) was systematic random sampling based on probability and 226 respondents of household farmers’ were selected purposely. Cross-sectional types of data were used. These data were analyzed by employing the statistical procedures of Stata11.The logistic regression model was used to analyze the effect of explanatory variables on explained variable. From 14 explanatory variables analyzed in the study seven of them (method of weed control, prevalence of disease, compost application, harvesting stage, availability of storage, availability of train and sex of the household farmer) were statistically significant. On the other hand, experimental result of the study area revealed that out of 226 respondents, coffee quality of 74 (32.74 percent) household farmers was poor qualified and for 152(67.26 percent) of households’ the quality was good. The recommendation to the problem related to coffee quality were, active participation of ARDO and DAs to recall, encourage and enforce household farmers to control weed and developing best practice among farmers, cutting disease infected tree or changing species of coffee after a given period of time, more applying composts, harvesting in three stages to select only full red beans, expanding qualified storage by farmers, providing door-to door training and giving special supports for female households in order to promote quality of this crop. The overall comment is that, the government must establish coffee quality measures and tasters at the rural household farmers’ level and Price-quality relation must be established for coffee suppliers in the rural areas.