What was said, who said it, where it can be checked, and whether an account sits behind it.

A figure given in a speech and a figure published in a release are different objects. The first can be repeated. Only the second can be checked, revised, disaggregated, or built on.

Documentation status is not a judgment about truth. An official statement is evidence. It is simply not a reproducible statistical account, and the difference matters when the number is going to be quoted for a year.

Crop year 2025/26

5 entries · reviewed 19 July 2026

18 July 2026 Published, this record

The export record announced to Parliament measures what coffee earned at the border and says nothing about what reached the grower; the Authority's planned Coffee Fund will only close that gap if it pays at the farm gate.

Speaker or institution: Wondwossen Mezlekia
Venue: Addis Fortune, op-ed (subscription)
Exact source: "The Missing Half of Ethiopia's Coffee Plan," Addis Fortune, 18 July 2026
Reporting period: Crop year 2025/26
Coffee Monitor note: Logged for the record because it is the argument entering the Ethiopian policy press. The full case is in the policy brief.
Correction history: None.

12 July 2026 Officially stated

The Ethiopian Coffee and Tea Authority is preparing a Coffee Fund to cushion price shocks and help replace ageing coffee trees.

Speaker or institution: Ethiopian Coffee and Tea Authority, as reported
Venue: Addis Fortune, reported by Bezawit Huluager
Exact source: "Authority Pins Hope on a Coffee Fund as Trees Grow Old," Addis Fortune, 12 July 2026
Reporting period: Fund in preparation; design not yet finalised
Definition used: The reported design triggers relief through the buyer. A proposed ten-cent-per-kilogram levy in the same article is attributed to rural-finance researcher Tekelemariyam Aweke, not to the Authority. The article reports that the fund's management arrangement is not yet decided.
Coffee Monitor note: This is the most timely entry in the record. The state is now proposing the instrument this site has argued for. The open question is where the trigger sits: a fund that pays through the buyer does not, by itself, put money in the grower's hands or generate a farm-gate price record. A fund that pays direct to verified grower accounts does both. That distinction is the whole of the brief.
Correction history: None.

7 July 2026 Officially stated

Ethiopia earned 3.1 billion dollars from coffee exports in 2025/26, up from 2.65 billion dollars the previous year.

Speaker or institution: Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed
Venue: House of Peoples' Representatives
Exact source: Parliamentary statement to the House of Peoples' Representatives, delivered on the closing day of the fiscal year, 7 July 2026. Widely reported; no written close-of-year release from the Authority has been located.
Reporting period: Ethiopian fiscal year 2025/26, closing 7 July 2026
Definition used: Not stated. The figure is presented as coffee export earnings. It is not specified whether it is gross export value, receipts repatriated, contract value, or shipped value, nor whether it is free on board.
Coffee Monitor note: The figure has been reproduced across the international press within days. No written close-of-year release from the Ethiopian Coffee and Tea Authority has been located, and until one appears the figure carries the attribution of a parliamentary statement rather than of a statistical publication. When a written release appears, this entry moves to Published figure, and the coverage index moves with it.
Correction history: None.

25 June 2026 Officially stated

Ethiopia has exceeded its annual coffee export record before the close of the fiscal year.

Speaker or institution: Agriculture Minister Addisu Arega
Venue: Public announcement
Exact source: Public statement by the Agriculture Minister, 25 June 2026, as reported in the Ethiopian press.
Reporting period: Ethiopian fiscal year 2025/26, then still open
Definition used: Not stated. The record referred to is presumed to be export earnings rather than volume, but this is not made explicit.
Coffee Monitor note: Announced with the year still open, which is normal practice and not a criticism. It is logged because the sequence of announcements matters: a record is declared, a figure follows, and the written account arrives late or not at all.
Correction history: None.

Standing since 2020 Collected, not public

The Ethiopian Coffee and Tea Authority and the National Bank of Ethiopia operate a joint daily coffee price desk.

Speaker or institution: ECTA and the National Bank of Ethiopia
Venue: Standing institutional arrangement
Exact source: Arrangement documented in the working paper Beyond the Coffee Record (under review at SSRN, 2026). Publication of the desk's series has not been located.
Reporting period: Daily, 2020 to present
Definition used: Unknown. The reference price the desk sets has no published definition, no stated coverage, and no disclosed relationship to prices paid at any point in the chain.
Coffee Monitor note: This is the single most consequential entry in the record. The state has been collecting a daily coffee price for six years. The collection is not in dispute. What is missing is publication. Releasing the series, with its definitions, would require no new capacity, no new budget, and no new institution.
Correction history: None.

Standing questions

Open

Three questions are put to the record and left open until they are answered in writing. Each has an institution that could close it in an afternoon.

Where is the written close-of-year release? A figure given to parliament is a political statement. A release with a table, a definition, and a revision policy is an account. The second has not appeared.
What does the daily price desk record? Two institutions have been collecting a daily reference price since 2020. Publishing the series with its definitions would settle a great deal at no cost.
What is the farmer's share? Nobody has said, because nobody has defined it. A definition is offered on the Method page so that someone can improve it or replace it.

Correcting this page

If an entry is wrong, or if a written source exists that is not listed here, send it. Corrections are made in public, the original text is struck rather than deleted, and the correction credits whoever supplied it. See the corrections policy and log, or write to wondwossen.mezlekia@coffeemonitor.com.