Cameroon processed less coffee last year as demand declined

The amount of coffee processed last year by Cameroon, Africa’s fifth-biggest producer of the beans, declined to 1 per cent of the crop because of a drop in demand as a result of the global financial crisis, the Cocoa and Coffee Board said. Cameroon ground only 481 metric tonnes of coffee last year out of the 48,123 tonnes of exportable beans produced, Michael Ndoping, the board’s general manager, said in an interview in Foumban, 400 kilometres (250 miles) east of the capital, Yaounde, on January 30. Cameroon processed 6.7 per cent of the crop the previous year, he said. Ethiopia is Africa’s biggest coffee producer.