Coffee auctions in Moshi and the zonal auctions

Law and the Coffee Board

The Coffee Industry Act, Cap. 347 came into force on 1 July 2002, according to TanzLII. It sets up the Tanzania Coffee Board and gives it power to issue coffee dealer licences and register processing factories (sections 3, 12 and 13) ⁴.

The Tanzania Coffee Industry Regulations, 2013 were published as GN 385 in the Gazette of 11 October 2013 ¹. The UN LEAP summary says no person may export coffee without a Board licence and that the Board organises coffee auctions. Dealers must buy from a registered grower, at a registered buying post or through an auction ¹.

The Moshi auction rule

Under paragraph 49 of the Tanzania Coffee Industry Regulations, 2003, all coffee had to be sold through auctions held by the Board at the Moshi Coffee Exchange, for export or not. The Board could let exporters who meet licence conditions sell outside the auction ². The Tripartite trade barriers platform records the measure as in force from 1 January 2003 ².

The 2013 Regulations replaced the 2003 text. The LEAP summary of the 2013 Regulations does not name the Moshi Coffee Exchange ¹. The full 2013 text could not be opened for this guide ¹.

Zonal auctions since 2024

A USDA Foreign Agricultural Service report by Benjamin Mtaki, dated 17 June 2024, says the government set up six zonal coffee auction sites in addition to the previously centralised auction in Moshi ³. It gives these start dates for the 2024/25 marketing year ³.

How coffee is sold

• Farm gate sale: farmers sell to licensed private buyers or cooperatives after primary processing ³.
• Auction: estates and cooperatives offer green coffee through electronic auctions. Coffee is sold by sample and the lots stay in licensed warehouses ³.
• Direct export: farmers trade with buyers abroad. The contracts must be registered with the Tanzania Coffee Board ³.
• Smallholders can reach direct exporters through AMCOS, cooperative unions or associations ³.
• Prices are set with reference to the New York futures market for Arabica and the London futures market for Robusta ³.

Coffee on TMX and reform plans

The Tanzania Mercantile Exchange lists several Robusta and Arabica coffee grades among the commodities it trades ⁵. TMX does not say on that page whether its coffee sales replace the Board's auctions ⁵.

In September 2024 the government announced plans to reform coffee trading. Agriculture Minister Hussein Bashe called the system then in use exploitative, as reported by Louis Kolumbia of The Citizen on 21 September 2024 ⁶. The details of the reform were not in the article text that could be read ⁶.

Production

USDA forecast output of 1.5 million 60 kg bags for the 2024/25 marketing year, up from 1.4 million, and exports of 1.31 million bags ³. It says about 90 percent of output comes from around 320,000 smallholder farmers ³.