Coffee farmers want urgent action amid looming fallout in Jamaica’s main export growth market, China
Vanassa McKenzie / Our Today
Groups representing local coffee farmers are calling for the Government and the Jamaica Agricultural Commodity Regulatory Authority (JACRA) to resolve issues with registration for China’s General Administration of Customs (GACC), which they believe is a major threat to local exports.
This after China’s managing body for imports and exports, GACC, implemented new registration requirements for the exporting of goods into Asia’s largest market.
Chairman of the Jamaica Coffee Exporters Association (JCEA) Norman Grant is projecting that this change in export requirements threatens to reduce coffee exports, which will negatively impact farmers and coffee production.
“Members and exporters of the Jamaica Coffee Exporters Association (JCEA) are facing the threat of reduced coffee exports to China and potential losses resulting therefrom,” he warned.
Grant explained that due to unresolved issues with JACRA’s registration with the GACC, coffee exporters now have coffee piling up and are unable to ship to their clients in China.
JACRA is the agency that approves and ships green coffee beans on behalf of local exporters.
“This will have a negative impact on the trade relationship with China, considered by the exporters as the key growth market for Jamaican coffee exports. This will ultimately impact the coffee farmers, as the loss of a significant base of clients will lead to reduced demand, and ultimately a lower price for Jamaican coffee,” he said.
Donald Salmon, president of the Jamaica Coffee Growers Association, is warning that if this unresolved issue persists, there will be significant fallout for exporters of the commodity.
“If it is allowed to stay for a long time, my reading of the situation is that it will affect the trade of coffee significantly because the farmers will not have a market to sell the coffee,” he told Our Today.
Salmon is now urging the Government to come up with at least a temporary solution to help mitigate the potential threats to farmers.
Salmon’s call is being echoed by the chairman of the JCEA, who is urging JACRA, the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, and the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, to resloved the matter urgently to avoid any further negative impact on the Jamaican coffee industry.
Grant said members of the JCEA will be seeking compensation from the government for losses incurred due to delays resolving JACRA’s GACC registration.
When Our Today contacted Minister of Agriculture Floyd Green to get a comment on the matter, he said he was unable to as he was not briefed on the matter.
According to the United Nations COMTRADE database on international trade, Jamaica’s coffee, tea, mate and spices to China was valued at US$2.51 million in 2022.
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