Investor briefFrom a 93-page comparative studyEthiopia · Vietnam · Colombia · Nepal

Nepal’s coffee isn’t failing. It’s unbuilt.

What three of the world’s biggest coffee exporters teach us about building a US$1 billion coffee industry along the Kaligandaki, and why the obstacle is institutions, not soil, climate or demand.

Prepared by: Prabin Gauli
Direction: Sagar Dhakal, MP Gulmi-1

0.3%
of Nepal's identified coffee land is planted: ≈28×
more coffee is wanted abroad than Nepal grows: 2.52
rupees back for every rupee spent, on Gulmi farms: 80+
minimum specialty cup score of Himalayan Arabica

The gap

Everything a coffee industry needs, except the industry.

The report’s central finding is blunt: Nepal is not short of land, buyers or profit per farm. It is short of the institutions that turn those into volume. That is why the opportunity is still open.

Exhibit 011.19 million hectares identified. 3,659 planted.Each dot is 1,190 ha of land the national coffee board (NTCDB) rates high-potential. Switch views to see the target and the risk on the same field.

3,659 ha. About three dots out of a thousand.

NTCDB (2018); Kathmandu Post (2019); Ranjitkar et al. (2016) for 2050. $1B land: derived, see chapter 5.

Exhibit 02Buyers are waiting. Supply isn't.Square areas are to scale. In FY2022/23 Nepal exported 77 t and imported about 450 t: a coffee country that buys coffee.

NTCDB demand estimate via Annapurna Express (2024); myRepublica (2023).

Exhibit 03The farm economics already work.A household survey of 100 farmers: every ropani returns about twice its cost. Labour is 40% of that cost.

Per ropani per year, US$

Cost to grow

$19.16

Income earned

$38.66

Benefit : cost ratio (1.0 = break even)

1.0

2.52 Gulmi

2.02 Both districts

1.52 Arghakhanchi

Bhattarai et al. (2020, 2024).

“Nepal’s coffee sector is not in decline. It is under-built. … Under-built means the solution is construction, not rescue.”
The report, conclusion

Four ways up

One from each continent, each a different way to become a coffee nation.

The report chose its benchmarks deliberately: Africa's oldest coffee culture, Asia's fastest-ever farm transformation, and Latin America's best-studied recovery. Pick a country to follow it through every chart below.

Organic, but under-built

Nepal

Real quality, real demand, real agronomic advantage, and none of the institutions that turned the others into exporters.

World rank: #56
Area under coffee: 3,659 ha
Species: 100% Arabica
Exports: Net importer
Research body: None
Market body: NTCDB (1993)

Exhibit 04Scale: from #56 to #2

Ethiopia 575,700 t · #5

Vietnam 2,000,000 t · #2

Colombia 892,140 t · #3

Nepal 501 t · #56

1001k10k100k1M10M

Log scale: each gridline is ten times the last. Vietnam grows about 4,000 times Nepal’s crop.

FAOSTAT; USDA GAIN; report master table (§6.3).

Exhibit 05Yield: the practice gap

Vietnam

2.30+

Ethiopia

0.75–1.10

Colombia

0.85

Nepal

0.19

Tonnes of green coffee per hectare.

MoALD (2021); USDA GAIN; Asfaw (2023).

Exhibit 06Altitude: Nepal is in the club

Ethiopia

Vietnam

Colombia

Nepal

500 m1,500 m2,500 m

Report §5.6, Fig. 26.

Exhibit 07Every success here stands on an institution built before it was needed.Colombia started breeding in 1968 and had a rust-resistant variety ready in 2005, three years before the epidemic. Nepal's coffee board, from 1993, sets prices and promotes; it does not breed, research or finance.

Colombia

1927 FNC growers' federation

1938 Cenicafé research centre

1968 Breeding programme begins

2005 Castillo variety ready

Ethiopia

1967 JARC research centre

2008 Commodity exchange (ECX)

2017 Direct export reopened

Vietnam

1986 Đổi Mới market reforms

Nepal

1938 First coffee planted, Gulmi

1993 NTCDB (prices, promotion)

192019401960198020002020

Report §6.5; Cristancho et al. (2012); IFPRI (2024).

It has happened before

Coffee sectors change fast once the right institution exists.

None of these curves is a story about better weather. Each bends at a decision: a market reform, a research programme, a trade rule. That is what makes them useful as evidence for Nepal.

Exhibit 08Vietnam: policy, not soilSame land and climate as the stagnant decade before 1986. After the reforms, production rose about 1,400% across the 1990s.

2024 · 1,470 thousand t

FAOSTAT; USDA GAIN; Winter (2024).

Exhibit 09Colombia: resilience built in advance420,000 ha replanted with the Castillo variety in six years. Rust fell from over 40% of farms to 5% by 2013.

2024 · 14.8 million 60-kg bags

Avelino et al. (2015); USDA GAIN.

Exhibit 10Ethiopia: value follows the marketReopening direct export in 2017 let origin-branded Arabica reach buyers. Earnings rose about five-fold by 2024/25.

2024 · $2,650M in exports

ITC; USDA GAIN (2026).

The report draws the sharpest parallel from Vietnam. From 1975 to 1986 it had the same highlands and the same climate that later carried a 1,400% rise, and output stood still, because the system did. Nepal today, the report argues, is that decade in reverse: the land is ready and the rules are what is missing.

Why the Kaligandaki

Nepal's coffee began here in 1938. The case for scale starts here too.

A hermit named Hira Giri planted the country’s first coffee in Aapchaur, Gulmi, and gave seeds away to his neighbours. Eighty-eight years later, all five districts of the government’s Coffee Super Zone are among this programme’s seven, and the report’s most realistic near-term target is almost exactly the size of the programme already pledged here.

Exhibit 11Seven districts, one pilot the size of the report's target110,000 ropani is about 5,600 ha. The report's moderate scenario, the one it calls most realistic, is 5,000 ha. Together the seven districts hold roughly 245,000 suitable hectares.

Gulmi
44,973
Palpa
42,038
Pyuthan
41,980
Syangja
38,708
Arghakhanchi
34,649
Baglung
22,748
Parbat
19,914

Highly suitableSuitable, haPMAMP Super Zone

245,010
ha suitable across the seven districts: ≈5,600
ha in the 110,000-ropani pledge: 5,000
ha in the report's moderate case

District suitability: Kali Coffee DPR land model. Scenario: report Table 1 (§7.8). 1 ropani = 508.7 m².

Exhibit 12What's in the cup

800–1,600 m
Growing altitude: slow ripening, dense beans: 80+ points
Every lot from cooperatives supplying Himalaya Coffee Co.: 2–3×
Price premium at home over imported coffee: Berry, citrus
Cup notes, compared with Ethiopian and Colombian Arabica

Perfect Daily Grind (2025); Ecotact (2024); NTCDB.

Exhibit 13Small, but growing again

NTCDB; FAOSTAT via Selina Wamucii (2026); Farsight Nepal (2022).

1938
Hira Giri plants the first seeds in Aapchaur, Gulmi
1968
Government imports seed from India
1981
First coffee nursery, Aapchaur
1993
NTCDB Act; growers' association formed
1994/95
First export, to Japan: 12.95 t produced
2013
'Himalayan Specialty Nepal Coffee' registered as an EU collective trademark
2016
White stem borer becomes epidemic in Gulmi
2018/19
PMAMP Coffee Super Zone: Gulmi, Arghakhanchi, Pyuthan, Palpa, Syangja
2024
501 t, up 27% in a year; ranked #56 in the world

A candid note. After the white stem borer epidemic of 2016, which a survey of Gulmi farmers ranked their biggest problem (72%), the centre of production drifted east to Kavrepalanchok. Rebuilding the origin is exactly what the research and replanting steps in chapter 6 are for.

The arithmetic of a billion

A billion dollars is land, times yield, times price. Try it.

The report's title promises a billion-dollar market, and its scenario table gives the building blocks. Multiply them out at the export prices the report records and the target falls between its moderate and aggressive cases. Move the levers and see for yourself.

Start from

≈87,000 ha at Ethiopia's yield, sold at today's specialty price

Land under coffee87,000 ha1,000 ha7.3% of identified land150,000Yield900 kg/ha

Export price, green coffee

Vietnam average$4.15/kgEthiopia average$5.65/kgNepal specialty today$12.80/kg

How: Rs 130.4M ÷ 77 t (FY2022/23), at ≈ Rs 132 per US$.

Annual export value

$1.00B

87,000 ha × 900 kg/ha = 78,300 t × $12.80/kg

Progress to US$1 billion100%

$0$1B$1.5B

156×
today’s 501 t crop: 78,125 t
needed for $1B at this price: 86,806 ha
needed at this yield, 7.3% of identified land

For scale, what the benchmarks earn in a year

Ethiopia $2.65BVietnam $5.48BColombia $5.40B

Illustrative arithmetic, not a forecast. Prices are export unit values implied by figures in the report; a specialty premium may narrow as volume grows, which is why the lower benchmark prices are here. The report itself flags its aggressive case (Vietnam-level yields on hill terraces) as a theoretical ceiling. Its reported 2024 crop is 501 t, below the 703 t its own area × yield baseline would imply.

What has to be built

Seven pieces of institution, each one already proven somewhere.

The report orders its recommendations by dependency: research first, because every other gain needs it; land next; then money, organisation, legal protection, climate finance and people. None asks Nepal to copy a country wholesale.

Select a tributary or a step to read it.

Step 1 of 7

A coffee research centre

A dedicated unit for white stem borer control under organic rules, climate-adapted varieties and hill-terrace agronomy.

Borrowed from: Colombia's Cenicafé · Vietnam's WASI
Evidence: Cenicafé had Castillo ready in 2005, three years before the rust epidemic. WASI distributes 4–5 million seedlings a year.

Risks, stated plainly

The report names what could go wrong. So do we.

The largest is climate: a peer-reviewed study projects that 72.6% of Nepal's suitable coffee area could be lost by 2050. That is why expansion has to go uphill, above 1,200–1,400 m, from the first planting.

Exhibit 14Six risks, and the step that answers eachPositions follow the report's own ratings (§7.9). Select a point.

Less likelyLikelihood →More likely

↑ Impact, from moderate to severe

Risk

Climate shrinks suitable land

What answers it

Plant uphill first; link to NDC 3.0 agroforestry finance.

Report risk matrix; Ranjitkar et al. (2016).

The land, the buyers and the farm economics are in place. What’s missing is the build.

Kali Coffee is that build, starting in the districts where Nepal’s coffee began: a costed 10,000-ropani block in Gulmi, and pledges for ten more across seven districts.

Partner with us See the Gulmi investment case

About this page

A visual summary of “Establishing a Billion+ USD Nepalese Coffee Market: A comparative study and policy roadmap” (93 pages), prepared by Prabin Gauli under the direction of Sagar Dhakal, MP Gulmi-1. Figures are quoted from the report. Where we calculated something, such as export prices per kilogram and the size of a billion-dollar crop, the working is shown beside it. Where the report gives two values, we use its master comparison table.

Principal sources

NTCDB; MoALD (2021); Farsight Nepal (2022); Annapurna Express (2024)
FAOSTAT; UN Comtrade via WITS; USDA GAIN country reports (ET, VM2025-0018, CO2025-0014/0035)
Ranjitkar et al. (2016), PLOS ONE: climate change and coffee suitability in Nepal
Avelino et al. (2015); Cristancho et al. (2012): Colombia leaf rust and Castillo
Bhattarai et al. (2020, 2024): farm economics in Gulmi and Arghakhanchi
Lozano-Espitia & Ramírez (2021); Asfaw (2023); Winter (2024)
…and the rest of the full report's reference list