The Project

Constraints

A commodity chain based research and dissemination project involving numerous collaborating countries and institutions over three continents makes for a complex enterprise. The enormity of the task has, at times, made close monitoring of activities difficult. Unforeseeable events (be they socio-political, the weather, or sheer bad luck) have, as with any project of this nature, created additional challenges for project implementation.

Despite the various difficulties encountered, the project has, and will continue to, achieve some useful outputs and contributions in the prevention of mould and reduction of OTA in coffee. Indeed, it is the wider, economic, context of the coffee sector that provide greater constraints on the ultimate sustainability and success of the project.

Although coffee producing countries continue to be committed to the promotion of better practices in the coffee chain, there are several factors that complicate their task, such as:

• New systems of coffee marketing emerged after market liberalisation in many producing countries. In this new (and evolving) situation, government institutions in many countries can face difficulty in establishing an appropriate policy environment that facilitates auto-regulation of quality and safety by the economic operators in the marketing chain;
• International demand for low quality coffee exists - making it more difficult to insist on good practices at farmer and trader levels;
• Depressed prices in the international coffee market since the late 1990s mean that farmers are often less motivated to dedicate more time and resources in the handling of their coffee;
• Decreasing national revenues from coffee lead to reductions in available human and financial resources at coffee institutions in producing countries, which are then unable to provide the technical support required.

All stakeholders in the coffee sector - at both national and international levels - have a part to play in removing the constraints to improving hygiene practices throughout the coffee marketing chain.

However, OTA occurrence data collected by the European coffee industry over recent years shows a substantial decrease in the mean OTA levels for roasted and ground coffee. This has in part been attributed to the activities of the global project in raising awareness of the problem in producer countries, in promoting good practices and in defining prevention strategies.