Ethiopia is one of the world's poorest countries, but it is also the place where coffee cultivation first began. Ethiopian coffee farmers are mostly small holders who support their families with a mixture of subsistence agriculture and cash cropping. Coffee is one of the few viable cash crops.
Nestlé promoted and financed the installation and operation of an eco-friendly processing facility in Kochere Woreda. Initially, 50% of the 2004-05 crop processed at this unit was treated in the new facility. Rather than using water from a local river, a dedicated water well was drilled. The new technology uses just 6 litres of water per kilogram of green coffee produced, thus saving about 26 million litres of water per crop. This represents a 96% reduction in water use.
In addition, all pulp and mucilage discarded from the wet mill is treated separately with calcium carbonate and returned to coffee farms as organic fertiliser. This process has reduced water pollution by 99% in comparison to former practices. As a side effect, energy saved by the new process lowered energy-related costs by 96%, creating savings of more than USD 17 000 per crop. The very positive results justified scaling up the capacity to process 100% of the crop in the 2005-06 season using the new method and to promote installing this type of facility at other post-harvest treatment units in Ethiopia.