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Colombia has done a great marketing and promotion work to position its coffee in the highest-value segments of the global market, Brazilian researchers recognize.

Although Brazil, by volume, is the largest world exporter of the bean, Brazilian researchers recognize that Brazil has much to learn on how Colombia markets and has managed to position its coffee as the best mild washed coffee in the world.

With a work focused on quality and value-added strategies that allow coffee growers to climb the value chain, including appropriate characterization and defense of origin, as well as production of specialty coffee, the Colombian Coffee Growers Federation (FNC) has managed to position Colombian coffee in the highest-value segments, which translate into important quality premiums for farmers.

“Colombia has done a great marketing and promotion work for its coffee and all that surrounds the coffee culture,” says Sergio Parreiras, a scientific researcher at the Campinas Agronomic Institute (IAC), in Brazil.

Parreiras was one of attendees to the 25 International Conference on Coffee Science (ASIC 2014), which took place between September 8 and 12 in Armenia, the capital of the Quindío department, at the heart of the Coffee Cultural Landscape.

“We in Brazil should learn much about it, to achieve for our regions this culture, that people in Brazil also feel honored of working in coffee farming,” Parreiras notes. “It is important to work in the issue of quality and sustainability. We have to work more with quality and show the world that Brazil has very good coffees.”

ASIC 2014 received 586 participants from 47 countries, a double record in history of this international meeting, organized in Armenia, Quindío, by the FNC and the Association for Science and Information on Coffee (ASIC).

The meeting is held every two years and brings together the coffee industry, academia and specialists working in different fields of coffee science and technology, which allows them to share and compare their research.

Attendance of key players in the coffee industry, coming both from consuming and producing countries, was also a unique opportunity to build or strengthen cooperation and commercial relationships between players of the whole coffee chain.

Colombia and Cenicafé (the FNC’s research arm) are seen by the international scientific community as leaders in coffee science research, technology development and knowledge transfer for the benefit of Colombian coffee growers, which has allowed the country to host this important event three times.