US Donates $17.8m worth of wheat

Aug 31 , 2019

The United States Department of Agriculture announced that it is donating 17.8 million dollars worth of wheat to Techno Serve Ethiopia, a non profit organisation, on August 29, 2019. Technoserve will use funds generated from the sale of this wheat to support Ethiopia’s coffee sector by increasing productivity and expanding the coffee trade. TechnoServe is an international non-profit based in Washington, DC that promotes business solutions to poverty in the developing world by linking people to information, capital and markets. Since 2009, TechnoServe has been working to address lack of coordination, information and access to markets, with a focus on supporting smallholder coffee farmers. Coffee is the most important foreign currency earner for Ethiopia. The United States was the fourth-largest buyer of Ethiopian coffee, accounting for nearly 11pc of total Ethiopian coffee exports by volume valued at 142.1 million dollars in 2017/18. Ethiopia has more than 400 coffee exporters, 395 coffee farmers who directly export coffee and over 30 import-export companies who export coffee and use the foreign currency to import other materials like vehicles and construction inputs.