Aliyie Gobena Hessa - Ethiopia 2021

Aliyie Gobena is a 30 years old coffee farmer and a father of nine children. He lives in Refesa kebele, Nensebo woreda in the West Arsi Zone, Oromia region. He has grown coffee for the last nine years on his four hectares of land. He grows the 74112 coffee variety and annually collects an average of 4500 kilograms of coffee which he processes as natural. Aliye, says that with assistance from agricultural extension workers, he takes extra care to produce quality beans. However, he sells his coffee at the local market which does not differentiate price based on quality; which makes the incentive very low compared to his hard work. He believes Cup of Excellence will change that for him and coffee growers in his area. “I wanted to participate in this competition to get the value of my coffee and also because I wanted to try something new. I’ve been selling my coffee, for very long, on the same market. I need to diversify. I am happy that I am one of the winning coffees in the competition and I believe this will open new opportunities in terms of market access,” he said.