By Eddie Ssejjoba
The Government has allocated sh13.9b to the Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA) for registration of coffee farmers countrywide ahead of the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) deadline.
On December 5, 2022, the EU, which buys 63% of Uganda’s coffee exports, approved the EUDR, intended to prevent trade of products linked to deforestation.
The regulation came into force on June 29, last year, with full application deadline of December 30, this year, for large scale dealers and June 30, next year, for small enterprises.
To comply with the EU requirements, UCDA has embarked on a full-scale campaign to mobilise coffee farmers to embrace the registration exercise, and among other things, demystify what they termed as falsehoods, especially in the central region about the forthcoming registration exercise.
The agency has, therefore, brought on board the Inter-Religious Council of Uganda (IRCU), an organisation that works through its leadership and structures to mobilise and organise Ugandans.
During a meeting with the IRCU secretary general, Joshua Kitakule, at Mengo in Kampala, on Friday, UCDA officials, led by Robert Nangitsa, the manager extension services, appealed to all religious leaders to use their pulpits to drum up support for the exercise.
He said this will ensure that farmers receive and embrace the campaign as soon as possible before the deadline expires.
The meeting, which was chaired Msgr Dr John Kauta, the secretary general of the Uganda Episcopal Conference, was attended by IRCU board members.
The EU regulation, according to Nangitsa, is aimed at combating deforestation directly, which is defined as “conversion of forest land into arable land, potentially spanning more than 1.25acres, with a canopy cover of more than 10% and tree height of more than five metres.”
This definition does not segregate a natural and plantation forest, said Nangitsa, adding that it affects the period from December 2020 onwards.
Nangitsa said the registration exercise ‘is not a joking subject’, because last year alone, Uganda exported 6.39 million bags of coffee valued at $1.35b (sh4.9 trillion), adding that the coffee sector employs over 1.8 million households. “Many farmers would benefit when their farms are mapped and proven to be deforestation-free,” he said.
Nangitsa emphasised that registration of farmers is free of charge and all the registered farms would be issued with a unique identifier, which will be used to identify each coffee’s original farm.
