Some coffee growers in Mbeya region are worried over the plummeting of the product’s markets due to Covid-19 infections, saying that many buyers are foreign based.
Speaking to this paper at different times at the weekend, farmers from Kitengule valley in Mbalizi said they are worried because many international borders are now closed.
Among them, Joseph Mwashitete said coffee is different to food crops because its domestic market is small compared to the foreign markets and that they cultivate the crop due to the push from international markets.
He said some foreign international companies have even been lending them agricultural inputs for coffee cultivation and now there is a danger for the suspension of the loans and the plummeting of production prices.
“In regard to food crops… even if we fail to sell them we feed ourselves, but as for coffee, my family cannot finish one bag in the whole year,” he said and added that the foreign countries which have been buying our coffee are the very ones mostly affected by Covid-19 pandemic.
Another coffee farmer, Nathan Mbwaga from Itimba village said the coffee picking period was approaching but up to now the firms that showed their intention to buy the crop are very few.
He appealed to the government to continue educating wananchi at all levels to minimize the spread of the pandemic because domestic coffee markets could also shrink.
He said coffee production has been increasing every year due to the increase of demand in world markets but if international demand shrinks, so will production.