Saving water during post-harvest coffee processing - Ethiopia

Colombian coffee expert Gerardo Jara Pascuas demonstrates the new water-saving coffee processing technology developed in Latin America, and now shared in Kochere Woreda, Ethiopia Ethiopia is one of the world's poorest countries, and at the same time the place that first cultivated the coffee tree. Ethiopian coffee farmers are mostly small holders living from subsistence agriculture, and coffee is one of the few cash crops which they can count on as income. Nestlé promoted and financed the installation and operation of an eco-friendly processing facility in Kochere Woreda. Initially, 50% of the 2004/2005 crop processed at this unit was treated in the new facility. Rather than using the water from the river, a dedicated water well was drilled as part of the project. The new technology uses only 6 litres of water per kilogram of green coffee, thus saving about 26 million litres of water per crop, a 96% reduction of water use. Furthermore, all the pulp and mucilage discarded from the wet mill is treated separately with calcium carbonate and returned to coffee farms as organic fertiliser. Together with the filtration of the remaining process water, this reduced water pollution by 99% when compared to the old technology. As a side effect, energy saved in 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 2005/2006 season and to promote installing this type of facility at other post-harvest treatment units in Ethiopia.