A crop of good coffee cherries at Jimma Agaro. - - Coffee Cultivation. Ethiopia's most important cash crop is coffee, which provides an annual export va1ue of over Eth$ 150,000,000. Several varieties are marketed and both plantation coffee and wild coffee from the forests of the south west are important. A National Coffee Board was established in 1957 to maintain standards in production and processing and to set up fixed and mobile cleaning plants.