Coffee Production a Golden Opportunity for Rural Youth Employment

Abstract

This brief provides evidence on the status-quo in the coffee value chain and reveals that over 68 percent of profit margins along the international raw coffee value chain are retained at the farm level – and therefore opportunities for youth employment in the coffee value chain lies at the production level. Nevertheless the challenge remains the limited ability for the youth to actively participate in the primary coffee production. The upstream coffee production is a domain of households headed by the persons in the prime aged 31 years and above, seemingly with secure access to land - a key prerequisite given that coffee is a perennial crop. Therefore the concept of a new generation of young coffee farmers becomes more distant if issues regarding to access to land are not addressed.