Musa Abalulesa

Goma District, Oma Funtule Kebele, Ethiopia

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Partner since: 2016 Traceable to: Musa Abalulesa and 21 smallholders Altitude: 2100 MASL Varietals: 74110, 74165

Supplier Structure:

Relatively large farm that also processes cherry from 21 neighbors, as well as operating a seed bank.

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Community Context

Musa Abalulesa and his brothers, Mustefa and Gugu, each farm small holdings in Gomma, Agaro. Musa and Mustefa jointly manage two farms outside Beshasha—Koye and Chanko—on land at 2,100 meters that was once dense jungle. Before it was cleared for coffee, that parcel served as a hideout for their father, Abalulesa, a guerrilla resisting the Derg military regime. After repeated failed attempts to capture him—and mounting losses—the government placed a bounty on his head. As his health declined, Abalulesa entrusted an old friend with a final request: claim the reward by telling authorities he had killed him, in gratitude for caring for him in his last months. Abalulesa died in 1977, when Musa was two. Under a later amnesty and reconciliation program, the government granted land to the family—property his sons now farm.

In 2006, Musa won a national competition organized by the Ethiopian government among 500 selected participants. The prize sent him to AFCA in Uganda and included both cash and a hand pulper. He reinvested the money to expand his farm to 43.8 hectares. Two years later, however, the launch of the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange ended direct export, forcing him to sell locally in Agaro at commercial prices.

That shifted in 2016, when export liberalization allowed certain farmers to secure their own licenses. Crop to Cup became Musa’s first direct-sale customer that year. His success has encouraged others in the region—including Gugu—to pursue direct export in search of stronger prices. Premiums earned since have funded farm renovations, new seedlings from his nursery, additional drying beds, shade cloth, and a larger warehouse.

Musa farms organically, grows avocados, and keeps honey bees to diversify income. Together, Musa and Mustefa also operate a seed production business, supplying seeds to local government seed banks.

Country Context

Ethiopia is a coffee powerhouse. It’s the birthplace of the plant, a top 10 global producer by volume and the largest in Africa, and coffee here is always as culturally central as it is economically vital. Nearly 15 million Ethiopians rely on coffee for income — it represents about 40% of exports and 60% of foreign income. Unsurprisingly, the magnitude of this industry ensures that the government always has a hand in it, with systems shapeshifting with the dynamics of the state.

Proudly never colonized, Ethiopia was long ruled by a Tigrayan-led minority government, until 2018, when mass protests brought Abiy Ahmed to power as the first Oromo president. Oromia, the nation’s largest region and namesake of its largest tribe, sprawls south and west from the capital across much of the country’s coffee heartland.

After an initial period of reform and legislation under Ahmed, the pandemic precipitated a backsliding domino effect: elections planned for 2020 were postponed, but Tigray defiantly held their own regional elections, an action deemed illegal by the federal government, sparking a conflict that escalated into a civil war with a precarious peace agreement not met until the fall of 2022.

Today, buying coffee in Ethiopia happens three ways: through the national auction (the ECX), via Cooperative Unions, or from private farms and out-grower schemes.

* The ECX, launched in 2008 to bring transparency to rural sellers, routes coffee through 55 warehouses where it’s graded and sold in 30-bag contracts. Buyers can’t cup before purchasing, so exporters sometimes allow buyers to cup their own purchases afterward, despite the inability to retain meaningful traceability.

* Coop Unions — organized by geography (Oromia, Sidama, Yirgacheffe, etc.)—aggregate coffee from member societies, split profits with them, and remain the main certified (FTO) channel. Newer players like Kata Maduga have emerged, formed by coops seeking more control over some exceptional lots.

* Private farms and out-grower schemes are the most direct path to traceability, but they’re rare in Ethiopia’s smallholder-heavy landscape—2 hectares are needed for private export eligibility. Larger estates are most common in the west, where land redistribution created bigger blocks. Some mill owners navigate ECX restrictions by registering land as farms, giving them export rights.

Altogether, you have a system that’s constantly shifting—at once bureaucratic and inventive, fragmented yet capable of producing some of the most singular coffees in the world.