The Dominican Republic is on the verge of reclaiming its status as a self-sufficient coffee producer, driven by high-yielding, disease-resistant plant varieties introduced over the last decade and rising coffee export prices.
Leonidas Batista, executive director of the Dominican Coffee Institute (Indocafé), told local media that the rapid growth of these new plantations is significantly reducing the nation’s reliance on foreign beans. Local roasters, he noted, are now importing only minimal quantities as domestic supply strengthens.
The rising prices of coffee are behind the new efforts to increase production. Production went from 1,218,126 quintals for the 2016-2020 period generating US$31.6 million. From 2020-2024/25 period, total production has increased to 2,641,155 quintals generating US$152 million.
Batista highlighted that last year alone, coffee exports reached US$48 million, reflecting a sharp upward trend compared to previous years.
Resistance and expansion
The turnaround is largely credited to a strategic focus on varieties tolerant to coffee leaf rust (roya), a fungus that has devastated crops globally. Since 2020, the government has intensified research and distribution of these resilient strains.
Support for this expansion has come through the Presidential Agroforestry Development Project (Utepda), which has distributed millions of plants to farmers across the country since its inception in 2017.
While the southern region, specifically provinces like Barahona, Bahoruco, and San José de Ocoa, remains a powerhouse for these new varieties, production is also robust in the North (Santiago and La Vega) and the East (Hato Mayor and El Seibo).
To further boost the sector’s international competitiveness, Indocafé has deployed technical teams to georeference farms. This digital mapping provides foreign buyers with precise origin data, a growing requirement in the global specialty coffee market.
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Hoy
18 February 2026