'Festicoffee' 2014 Activities Hold in 21 Localities

Coffee-tasting is taking centre stage within and without the country ahead of the official opening ceremony on May 30, 2014.

Some inhabitants in 21 localities in Cameroon and those of some capitals of eight other African countries like Abidjan, Bangui, Lagos, Libreville, Antananarivo, Freetown, Lome and Monrovia are into coffee tasting and serious brainwork on how to revamp the sector to occupy its yesteryear's pride of place position in the countries' socio-economic development.

This is within the framework of the second edition of the international coffee festival, "Festicoffee." While waiting for the official opening ceremony this Friday May 30 by the Minister of Trade, the coffee show placed under the theme, "Coffee: The Revival," is already attracting visitors to the various stands erected by stakeholders in the exhibition villages like the Multipurpose Sports Complex in Yaounde.

The event patronised by the Ministry of Trade is jointly organised by the Cocoa and Coffee Interprofessional Council (CICC) and the Agency of Robusta Coffee of Africa and Madagascar (ACRAM). The coffee show comprises coffee testing day on the theme, "Let's consume our good coffee," operators' debates and farmers' forum on "How to produce more coffee," trade fair, researchers symposium on Robusta coffee, an ACRAM general assembly and a gala evening to reward excellent coffee stakeholders. It runs from May 29-31, 2014.

Stakeholders say the focus on production and consumption of coffee is based on the belief that consumption encourages the farmers to produce more. The initiative is born out of the past tendency wherein coffee production was nearly exclusively for the foreign market. But analysts say it has been proven that coffee is a health product and a major commercial produce as it is one of the most traded commodity around the world.

Hope is that Festicoffee will put coffee at a better light and encourage the various actors to take it more seriously to create employment and generate income. Statistics show that national coffee production last farming season was in the neighbourhood of 16,142 metric tons down from the 38,127 metric tons a year earlier.