Five questions, each with an institution that could answer it in an afternoon.

None of these asks anyone to build a statistical system. Each asks for a document that either already exists or would take a working day to produce. That is the test a question has to pass to appear here.

A question stays on this page until it is answered in writing. What was asked, when, of whom, and what came back is logged below, including when nothing comes back. Silence is a finding and it is recorded as one.

The questions

5 open · reviewed 16 August 2026

Question 1 Open

Where is the written close-of-year release for crop year 2025/26?

Who could close it: Ethiopian Coffee and Tea Authority
Status: Open. Not yet put in writing.
What would close it: A written release covering the closed fiscal year with a table of export earnings and volume, a statement of what is counted and how, and a revision policy. Not a speech, not a press mention, and not a figure repeated by a third party.
Why it matters: A figure given to Parliament is a political statement. A release with a table and a method is an account, and only an account can be checked, disaggregated, or built on. Two rows of the coverage index move up the day this appears.
Log: No correspondence yet.

Question 2 Open

What does the joint daily coffee price desk record, and why is its output not public?

Who could close it: ECTA and the National Bank of Ethiopia
Status: Open. Not yet put in writing.
What would close it: Publication of the daily reference price series maintained since 2020, with its definition, its coverage, and a statement of how it relates to prices actually paid at any point in the chain.
Why it matters: This is the cheapest movement available anywhere on the index. The collection is not in dispute and has run for six years. No new capacity, budget, or institution is required. What is missing is publication, and publication alone.
Log: No correspondence yet.

Question 3 Open

Does the Ethiopian Coffee Traceability and Management System record the transaction price, and at what point in the chain does it begin recording?

Who could close it: Ethiopian Coffee and Tea Authority
Status: Open. Not yet put in writing.
What would close it: A statement of the system's data model: which fields are captured, at which node, and whether recording starts at the first transaction with the grower or further up at aggregation.
Why it matters: The system passed to the Authority in March 2026 and reaches the individual plot, because a European regulation requires it to. Either answer is useful. If a transaction price is already captured, a farm-gate series exists in draft and needs only to be published. If it is not, adding the field is a far smaller undertaking than building the system was. A third possibility deserves naming: a system can satisfy Europe by linking a lot to a plot at the washing station without ever recording what the grower was paid, which would look complete abroad and tell Ethiopia nothing.
Log: No correspondence yet.

Question 4 Open

Did the record come from price or from volume?

Who could close it: National Bank of Ethiopia
Status: Open. Not yet put in writing.
What would close it: One table of monthly coffee export volume and value for the fiscal year, with the definitions used. A single page.
Why it matters: The Bank stated in writing on 31 March 2026 that coffee export volume fell against the previous year, and in the same release that coffee export earnings improved significantly, across the same eight months. It gave a figure for neither. If both hold, the year was carried by price rather than quantity, which makes the question of how much of that price reached the grower sharper rather than softer. See the record entry.
Log: No correspondence yet.

Question 5 Open

What is the farmer's share of export value, and what definition is being used to calculate it?

Who could close it: Any institution willing to adopt and publish a definition
Status: Open. Not yet put in writing.
What would close it: A published definition of farmer share, and the farm-gate price series it requires. A first-draft definition is offered on the Method page precisely so that someone can improve it or replace it with a better one.
Why it matters: This is the figure the whole account turns on, and the only one on the index that cannot be answered by publishing something that already exists. It is last on this list because the four questions above are prerequisites for answering it well.
Log: No correspondence yet.

How this page works

Method

A question earns its place by being answerable. If closing it would require building a statistical system, it is a proposal and belongs in the research, not here. Every question on this page names a document that could be produced in a working day.
Questions are put in writing, to a named institution, on a stated date. The log for each records what was sent and when.
Replies are published in full, not summarised, and a reply that corrects Coffee Monitor is credited to the institution by name in the corrections log. Being right in public is worth something.
Silence is recorded, not editorialised. The log states the date asked and that no reply has been received. It does not characterise the silence.
A question closes only on a retrievable document. A verbal assurance moves nothing, which is the same standard the coverage index applies to everything else.

If you can answer one of these

Send the document. A single retrievable citation closes a question, moves a row on the index, and is logged with the source credited. That offer is made in earnest, to officials and to anyone else who has the paper: wondwossen.mezlekia@coffeemonitor.com.

Journalists are welcome to put any of these to the institutions named. A question asked by a reporter gets an answer that a website asking cannot, and no attribution to Coffee Monitor is required.