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Zambian Green Coffee

The story of how green coffee came to Zambia seems familiar: men in Holy Orders arrive and plant seeds. But in the case of Zambia, missionaries did not introduce coffee farming until the 1950's. Coffee plantings were an attempt to move away from copper and diversify exports. The emphasis was on yield and production efficiencies. Plantations were large and orderly, grown in full sun on flat land, and processed in large wet mills wherever possible. The efforts met with little success. Zambia did not formally export coffee until 1985. Over the last decade, however, there has been a shift to quality driven production and supporting smallholder farms.