Coffee is currently the second most traded commodity on earth besides oil with approximately 25 million farmers in over 50 countries involved in its production.
With about half a trillion cups drank per year, coffee is not only used for brewing a cup of joe. The coffee bean through decaffeination provides caffeine for beverages (cola), pharmaceuticals, and cosmetics.
Much has been done with the help of advanced farming skills and technologies that achieved higher yields in coffee crops annually, yet the demands are not fully met globally.
Populous nations like India and China are increasingly becoming fans of coffee adding to the increasing demands for coffee.
International Coffee Organization (ICO) announced in 2015 that as more of the world turns to coffee, demand for the beverage will increase by nearly 25% over the coming five years.
ICO’s executive director Roberio Silva in one of his statement to The Wall Street Journal in 2015, assumed that coffee consumption will be increasing as societies in India, China and Latin America continue to be westernized.
Currently, consumer intake of coffee stands at 141.6 million bags of beans however by 2020, coffee demand is slated will rise to 175.8 million bags (each weighs approximately 132 lb or 60 kg).
In 2015, Japan, Italy, France, Germany and United States of America (USA) were the five world’s largest coffee consumers with USA spending US$6 billion on coffee imports alone.
While coffee consumption happens mainly in the industrialised economies, more than 90 percent of coffee production takes place in developing countries where technologies are less used for coffee farming, which is also a factor affecting annual coffee production.
One of the developing nations and Pacific’s major coffee exporter to global market, Papua New Guinea (PNG) produces approximately 1 percent of the total world coffee production.
PNG coffee production averages one million bags (60,000 tons) a year according to PNG Coffee Industry Corporation.
Like other major exporters, International Coffee Organisation on its monthly coffee export statistics noted an incline in PNG’s monthly coffee export this year from 29, 000 bags in January 2016 to 90, 000 bags (60 KG Bags) in June.
ICO’s statistics showed that coffee exports were significantly lower in June 2016 compared to last year, down 11.2% to 9 million bags, which would represent the lowest June exports in six years.
Furthermore, statistics show that Honduras, India, Columbia, Vietnam and Brazil are the top five major suppliers of world coffee at the moment.
Indonesia which is one of the major coffee exporters in June 2015, had a significant decline in its export by 62.9 percent the same period this year.
Even though lower shipments were estimated from the world’s largest producers, the United States Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agriculture Services has lately announced that world coffee production for 2016/17 is forecasted to rise by 2.4 million bags from the previous year to 155.7 million bags (60 kilograms).
