August 27 - 2021
Coffee Geography Magazine
Mr.
Dejene Dadi is named as the new general manager of the largest coffee farmers’
cooperative in Africa, the Oromia Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union (OCFCU). The
union is Ethiopia’s success story which exports traceable, fair trade, organic,
UTZ, and Rain Forest Alliance certified coffees throughout the world.
Mr.
Dadi was the export strategist for OCFCU before he climbed the ladder as chief
executive. A graduate of Jimma University in International Trade and Economics,
he served number of companies for more
than 20 year in different positions in the country.
The union pays 70% of its net profit back to the cooperatives
and the cooperatives also pay 70% of their profit to the member farmers. Currently,
it manages 407 primary cooperatives representing more than 557,186 coffee
farmers with the total capital of USD$20,763,000.
It
was founded in 1999 to operate exclusively in Oromia province, which accounts
for more than 65 % of the country’s total coffee growing land. OCFCU now has cupping lab for quality control located at its office and have massive central
facility for technical, financial, administrative and also high tech processing
facility in the towns of Gelan, Dire Dawa and Kality with capacity of 5-7
tons per hour, 3-4 tons per hour, 11 tons per hour respectively. The processing
facility has created jobs for more than 2,000 seasonal employees.
Ethiopia
is the largest green coffee bean producer in Africa and the only country in the
world that consumes 50% of it.