The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and East African Cooperation (Trade, Investments and Productive Sector) through a representative, Ms. Eugenia Mwesiumo, has urged Coffee farmers to produce quality coffee to comply with set standards and international certification to enable them to access more markets and earn good prices for their products.
The call was made during an Internal Management System (IMS) training and coaching workshop held in Moshi. Funding for the training came from the European Union (EU) while its implementation was handled by the International Trade Centre (ITC) through its Market Access Upgrade Programme (MARKUP) built to provide knowledge to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), including Agricultural Marketing Cooperative Societies (Amcos) on the importance of using IMS.
Ms. Mwesiumo noted that: “The harmonization of standards in the productive sectors in East Africa has motivated farmers in the country to embark on producing crops with good quality that will enable them to be certified before exporting them and this has led many to obtain certification standards education”
The ITC-MARKUP Programme Senior Regional Technical Advisor and Coordinator, Mr. Safari Fungo, also gave a presentation at the training explaining that the training was aimed at empowering coffee farmers to produce quality products to help them with an opportunity towards certification which will, in turn, improve their visibility to more coffee markets internationally as well as premium coffee prices.
“Lack of technical know-how in coffee production among many coffee farmers and other entrepreneurs in the coffee sector is a big challenge; this program is meant to unlock that challenge by providing certification education,” he said.
