Evaluating the Quality of Coffee Product on Marketing Performance of Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX) Hawassa Branch

Abstract

Ethiopia is the birthplace and is the largest producer of Arabica coffee in Sub-Saharan Africa countries and it is ranked the fifth largest coffee producer in the world next to Brazil, Vietnam, Colombia, and Indonesia by contributing about 7 to 10% of total world coffee production. Coffee is the most important to the Ethiopian economy with about 15 million peoples has been directly or indirectly deriving their livelihoods from coffee product. Coffee is still Ethiopia’s number one export item. It accounts for 45 to 50% of Ethiopia’s total export earnings. A marketing system that coordinates better, that links faster, and that protects the interests of both sides of the trade. It is time for a marketing system that is transparent, efficient, and innovative, that will take Ethiopian agriculture into the new Millennium. Ethiopia, once a commercial trading hub in antiquity linking markets of East and West, can again claim a place in the global market arena. Coffee is the main cash and export crop in Southern Ethiopia as well as in the whole Ethiopia. ECX Hawassa branch is one of the 19th branches of, which carry out a new method of exchange and a safer one for all who trade on products. Though different researchers describe different factors on how and what impacts put on the quality of coffee products, however, no one describe clearly what factors are put effects on the Ethiopian, perhaps especially , the Hawassa branch ECX coffee quality product and market performance. The researcher, therefore, set objectives and planned schedule to investigate and in turn solve this vague issue as well as motivated to identify what and how factor particularly put effect on this issues. The researcher had designed and had used suitable and different methodologies and passed through it. The researcher used the responses of respondents sampled from 60 coffee suppliers which were sampled from 150 total suppliers. The researcher, finally come up with the result, of Less quality coffee and the decreasing the market performance which are mainly associated with poor adoption of improved technology, oldness of coffee trees and poor pruning and recycling system, climate, harvesting process like sorting , roasting ,shipping were among the major problems. Adoption of improved technologies is one of the most promising ways to increase productivity and production in Ethiopia. the researcher, at last, provides different set of recommendations in how and when as well as by whom and for whom should have to be done at chapter five and he dedicatedly advised that the concerned body had to have applied so as to end up with the problems observed in coffee production, control the factors, and in turn provide good quality of coffee products as well as good market performance in the ECX Hawassa branch in particular and the country at general.