In most developing countries, coffee production provides
an important option for income generation for resource
poor households and is thus essential in socio-economic
development of these countries. Its significance is underscored
by the fact that there are about 75 coffeeproducing
countries, mainly in South America, Africa and
Asia, employing about 10 million laborers and producing
approximately 6 million tons annually on a total area of
over 10 million ha (ICARD, 2002). Today, Arabica coffee
dominates contemporary coffee trade even though its
share fell from about 80% of world production during the
1960s to around 60% by the turn of century, initially
because of high growth of Robusta production in Brazil,
Vietnam and parts of Africa but more recently because of
the emergency of Asia as the world’s leading Robusta
producing region (Pillai, 1984; Richerzhagen and
Virchow, 2002)