Ethiopia Counts Coffee at the Wrong End

On July 7, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed told Parliament that Ethiopia had earned a record $3.1 billion from coffee exports. Six days later, the National Bank of Ethiopia reported that coffee export volume was down from the same period a year earlier. Both statements can be true. That is the problem. For a coffee-growing household in the coffee belt around Harar, in the East and West Hararghe zones of eastern Ethiopia’s Oromia region, the contradiction is not statistical. Coffee brings one…