AEKI to launch five-year coffee promotional
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Adi Eka Putra, a 30-year-old Jakarta-based radio broadcaster, is not a coffee lover. He prefers tea.
He only drinks coffee when he has to stay awake to work overtime at the office.
"I don't enjoy drinking coffee. It makes it hard for me to fall asleep. Plus I'm afraid of becoming addicted to it," Adi told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.
Dessy Theresia, a 20-year-old secretary at a Japanese firm in Central Jakarta, said coffee made her dizzy.
"I prefer tea. I have also asked my boyfriend to stop drinking coffee because it is not good for his health," Dessy said.
Adi and Dessy are among the young generation in this country of 210 million people that will soon be a target of a massive coffee promotion to be launched by the Indonesian Coffee Association (AEKI).
AEKI secretary-general Nuril Hakim said on Tuesday that the association had received some Rp 35 billion (about US$3.85 million) in grant from the International Coffee Organization (ICO) to finance the five-year campaign to promote coffee here.
"The campaign is aimed at increasing the country's per capita coffee consumption to one kilogram from the current 0.6 kg and also help prop up the price of the commodity," Nuril told The Post.
ICO also provided the same amount to Mexico and India.
Nuril said that the association would start distributing coffee freely to the public next year, first in Jakarta and Medan.
"We hope that after the campaign, our market can absorb at least some 200,000 tons (per year)," he said. The current domestic consumption is around 120,000 tons.
Indonesia, the world's third largest coffee producer, exports most of the popular bean due to a lack of demand at home.
According to one estimate, Finland has the largest per capita coffee consumption of 11.6 kg per year. In Asia, Japan is the largest with 2.6 kg per year.
Nuril said that the increase in per capita consumption would automatically help shore up the price of the commodity.
Coffee prices had been falling over the past three years due to oversupply. In January, coffee was priced at around $400 per ton, but it has now climbed to $842 per ton amid moves by the world's two largest coffee producers, Brazil and Vietnam, to cut output.
Nuril expected that if the two largest producing countries remained committed to the production cut scheme, the price of the commodity could easily increase to $900 per ton or about Rp 7,000 per kilogram at the farmer level here.
Brazil's output accounts for 1.95 million tons per year, followed by Vietnam with 720,000 million tons. The two countries control 38 percent of the world's coffee production of about 6.84 million tons.
According to Nuril, Brazil agreed to cut its production by about 400,000 tons per year while Vietnam agreed to cut its by Vietnam by 200,000 tons.
Nuril said that Indonesia's coffee output was expected to reach some 400,000 tons this year.
"We have cut our production from the previous 500,000 tons and next year, our production will be about 400,000 tons," he said.
The falling price of the commodity prompted some coffee growers in Lampung, the country's largest coffee producing area, to cut down their trees and plant vegetables, making it impossible for them to enjoy the possibility of higher prices next year.