amaica’s Blue Mountain has been described as the ‘Rolls-Royce of coffees’ and connoisseurs around the world declare it the finest of all. The coffee is grown only within a three-mile radius of Blue Mountain Peak at the southern tip of the Caribbean island.
 |
The coffee is subject to rigorous quality control by the regulatory division of the Jamaica Coffee Industry Board (CIB). “Jamaican coffee – Blue Mountain being the most famous – fetches a high premium on the world coffee market because of its scarcity, combined with its unique aroma, flavour and taste,” says Graham Dunkley, Director General of the regulatory division. “Scarcity is driven by the tough environment in which the coffee is grown – high altitudes and steep slopes.”
There are more than 20,000 coffee growers, mainly smallholders in Jamaica, but their total production is less than 0.1 per cent of the world crop. Most of it is sold in Japan, and in Britain, which receives only a tiny fraction of the total production, and it retails for around £68 a kilo.
|
||
|
In
the mid-1980s, the Jamaican government deregulated the coffee industry
to enable a few large coffee growers to establish processing works to
convert their beans to exportable-grade coffees. “Today, all of
Jamaican coffee exports are routed through the CIB to ensure that the
rigid quality standards are uniformly met,” says Mr Dunkley.
“The CIB’s commercial division, with its own processing works,
now competes on an equal footing with all other Jamaican coffee processors.”
David Martin, Chief Executive Officer of the CIB’s commercial division, says they are now selling more Blue Mountain coffee in Europe, although Japan still buys 84 per cent of total production. “Europe is a particularly interesting market for the CIB because Europeans are more likely to consume gourmet products such as Jamaican coffee,” he says.
|
||
|
Minister of Agriculture, Roger Clarke, says that the agricultural sector needs to focus its output on value-added products and niche markets. “We have already added value to coffee and now we are identifying further areas of agricultural potential, where we have a comparative advantage and where we can concentrate our resources. To date, we have new investment in the shrimp business and we have started growing cotton again.”
Other crops include citrus fruits, bananas and sugar, the latter playing an important role in Jamaica’s economy. The sugar industry employs over 200,000 people and accounts for substantial foreign exchange earnings. Competition from abroad has led the government to look at modernisation plans, and is in collaboration with with the Sugar Industry Authority and the Sugar Corporation to raise production levels.
[email protected]