Bedhatu Jibicho family’s journey in coffee is emblematic of the recent changes in the Ethiopian export rules, which in the past few years have opened new opportunities for individual farmers to export their own coffee, rather than limit exportation to cooperative unions and private companies. Bedhatu is native to the Worka area in the Gedeb district of Yirgacheffe. Her late husband was granted the family land in the 1960s from the Ethiopian government. After he passed away in 1991, Bedhatu continued to single-handedly manage the farm while raising all six of their children.
