Coffee industry operators have said Nigeria is not producing enough coffee beans to meet the needs of local businesses, citing gaps in cultivation, infrastructure, financing and technical knowledge.
They said the production shortfall has increased the industry’s reliance on imported beans, despite Nigeria’s potential to develop a competitive coffee sector.
The operators spoke during a four-day coffee activation organised by Nigerian coffee brand, Everything But Coffee (EBC), at Purple Mall, Freedom Way, Lekki, Lagos, to commemorate International Coffee Day.
EBC Managing Director, Nnenna Samuila, said the company sources coffee from Ethiopia, Cameroon, Uganda, Brazil, Colombia and Guatemala because local production cannot yet meet its quality and volume requirements.
“What’s stopping us from sourcing it from Nigeria? We’re not there yet. The quality is not there yet, truly. And where the quality is there, we don’t have enough,” she said.
Samuila said reviving local coffee production would require sustained investment in farming, processing, infrastructure and market access, noting that coffee cultivation takes several years before the plants mature.
Founder of Happy Coffee and Coffee Spot and convener of the Lagos Coffee Festival, Princess Adeyinka, called for a national coffee policy to provide direction for the development of the sector.
“On the government level, there is no policy for coffee in Nigeria. Nigeria needs to have a coffee policy,” she said.
Adeyinka said limited production, inadequate infrastructure and poor access to investment were among the challenges affecting businesses across the coffee value chain.
