The increasing interest of European regulators in the problem of OTA contamination in coffee prompted reactions from various stakeholders in the international coffee market. The European coffee industry initiated a pilot study on the occurrence of OTA in coffee in 1997, and also started a programme of monitoring of green coffee imports into Europe. The governments of coffee-producing countries encouraged the development of a project to build their capacities to reduce OTA contamination in coffee. Such a project, 'Improvement of coffee quality through the prevention of mould formation', was formulated with the collaboration of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Coffee Organization (ICO [www]) and the European coffee industry [www]. Funding has been provided by the Common Fund for Commodities [www] and the Government of the Netherlands [www]. Project implementation started near the end of 2000.

The highly localised occurrence of mycotoxins in coffee and the cost of appropriate sampling and analysis of green coffee are two disadvantages of an OTA control programme based on identifying and eliminating contaminated lots of coffee. There is widespread agreement that the focus of any effort to reduce OTA contamination of coffee must be the application on good hygiene practices throughout the coffee chain to avoid the formation of OTA. The FAO/CFC/ICO project therefore places due emphasis on training of all stakeholders in good hygiene practices. Appropriate monitoring and surveillance programmes are however part of sound programmes of OTA prevention. The project therefore also provides for capacity building in monitoring and analysis of OTA in coffee [xref].

Coffee producing countries continue to be committed to the promotion of better practices in the coffee chain but there are several factors that complicate their task, such as:

• New systems of coffee marketing emerged after market liberalisation in many producing countries. In this new and evolving situation, government institutions in many countries have some difficulty in establishing an appropriate policy environment that facilitates auto-regulation of quality and safety by the economic operators in the marketing chain;
• International demand for low quality coffee exists - making it more difficult to insist on good practices at farmer and trader levels;
• Depressed prices in the international coffee market means that farmers are often less motivated to dedicate more time and resources in the handling of their coffee;
• Decreasing national revenues from coffee leads to reductions in available human and financial resources at coffee institutions in producing countries which are then unable to provide the technical support required.

All stakeholders in the coffee sector - at national and international levels - have a part to play in removing the constraints to improving hygiene practices throughout the coffee marketing chain.