Rwanda said it expects its 2005 coffee output to fall by 7.4 percent from last year, but the tiny central African nation projects tea volumes will grow by 7.7 percent, an official said on Wednesday. Coffee production is expected to decline from last year's 27,000 tonnes to 25,000 in 2005, Manasseh Ntaganda, head of macro-economics at Rwanda's Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, told Reuters. The decline is attributed to cyclical conditions stemming from last year's big production.
"Last year's harvest was so good. We expect a decline this year as coffee trees need energy to regenerate," Ntaganda said. The gap in revenue from coffee will be filled by earnings from tea, the price of which has been rising on the international market, Ntaganda said.
Tea production is projected to increase to slightly over 14,000 tonnes from last year's 13,000 despite a drop in first quarter 2005 production.
Increased use of fertiliser and pesticides on plantations should help boost production, Ntaganda said. The area under cultivation has also been increased in an initiative that is likely to bear fruit in the second quarter of 2005.
But production volume in the first quarter of 2005 showed a decline to 3,641,760 kg from 3,771,908 in the first quarter of 2004 due to frosts.
"That is a seasonal factor. It could be low in the first quarter but volumes will increase as the year progresses, according to our projections," Ntaganda said.
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