East African Business Week

Bujumbura Burundi -  The government has expressed concern about the dwindling coffee production in the country.
The Minister for Agriculture and Livestock Development has called on operators in the sector to help increase production instead of constructing new Coffee Washing Stations.
 "We should not be interested in installing more washing stations while plantations are disappearing and no new fields are established," Mrs Odette Kayitesi said on May 13 while addressing a workshop organized for various stakeholders in the production, transformation and coffee trading sectors.
 The Government call comes after months of tension between the Government and the Confederation of Coffee Growers (CNAC) which flared up when Government privatized 13 of the 133 public stations to a Switzerland-based company, WEBCOR which is accused of paying too little as compared to the prices offered by other operators. WEBCOR gives only 370 against 490 BIF paid for every kg by other operators.
 Consequently, coffee growers are increasingly reluctant to sell their products to WEBCOR and even prefer to carry it to stations located at further distances instead of WEBCOR stations. Farmer associations have also begun to develop their own washing stations, making it more difficult for the privatized stations to access on coffee harvest.
  The decrease of coffee production is due to various external and internal factors though, including the loss of interest in the crop as a growing number of farmers have been replacing coffee plantations with food crops or do not give adequate care to the current coffee fields. There are also an important proportion of orchards that have not been renewed for decades hence contributing to the poor yield.