In the second part of the coffee series, Joshua Kato focuses on the interventions discussed at the G25 coffee summit held in Kampala between August 7 and 10, intended to improve production, post-harvest handling and value-addition.
By Joshua Kato
By Joshua Kato Through research, the average number of trees per acre have been raised by some farmers from 450 to around 900 or even more.
“Some of the leading coffee growing countries are doing it and yielding much higher than us,” Joseph Nkandu, a coffee farmer and trainer, said. This will increase yields per acre.
Nkandu explained that this can only be achieved if, among others, farmers use fertilisers and improved seedlings.
In places such as Mpigi district which is one of the leading producers of coffee in the central region, the population has picked up the coffee aroma again.
“In the early 2000s, many farmers had given up on growing coffee because it had become difficult to get good seedlings. Operation Wealth Creation (OWC) increased the distribution of seedlings which we planted and are now harvesting from them,” Godfrey Kiraga, from Kamengo, in Mpigi district, said.
Patrick Sserwadda, the Mpigidistrict production officer, said coffee farmers are also now being trained in better practices aimed at increasing production.
This was the same case in several other districts, including Masaka, Kalungu, Luwero, Mityana, Mubende, Rakai and Kyotera.
However, as the G25 Coffee Summit discussed, low value addition remains the largest hindrance to farmers in Uganda and Africa to get better earnings.
The summit convened in Kampala/Munyonyo between August 7-10.
“The conversation now must centre on adding value to our beans, rather than selling them raw; ‘added value’ means more money for the farmer. We must walk this talk,” Gerald Katabazi, who attended the summit, said.
Katabazi runs Volcano Coffee, a coffee brewing company.
Low value addition at farm level
For years now, President Yoweri Museveni has decried the practice of selling raw Ugandan coffee.
“We are simply donating our money to outside countries,” he said.
In the last two years, he has tried to invite investors to add value to the crop, but they were met with resistance. Museveni thinks that as long as value is added here at home, local consumption will go up too.
“There are some Ugandans who use rudimentary means to roast coffee, however, I am told that this coffee quickly loses its aroma. If we do it well, I am sure we can attract more local consumers,” Museveni said.
The domestic coffee consumption, according to Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA), is less than 3% of the crop produced in the country, including the one exported and brought back to Uganda (imports) after processing it.
An estimated 236,400 bags of coffee of 60kg were consumed in Uganda in 2016, an increase from 229,200 bags in 2015, which showed an increase of around 40,000 bags and 532,800 bags in 2022.
There is hope that the growth in domestic consumption trends will go on towards 2040.
“We are concerned that whilst Africa is the birthplace of both Arabica and Robusta coffee, it only produces 12% of the overall worldwide production; that coffee production and productivity in African coffee-producing countries remains consistently low,” the joint presidents’ communique said.
The summit reported that out of the global market share of $460b, coffee-producing countries in the world receive only $25b, while Uganda, the seventh leading exporter of coffee, earns just $845m.
“This huge variation is due to the fact that most coffee producers sell raw coffee without adding value to it. This wanton donation of our resources must stop. Our coffee per capita consumption per year is now over 0.8kg. We need to raise it in the next five years,” Dr Emmanuel Ilyamulemye, the executive director of UCDA said.
“In the last six years, value-added coffee imports increased by 519%, an indication that there is demand for coffee in Uganda,” he added.
This is certainly positive. However, there is need to improve value-addition if farmers are to earn more money.
Ilyamulemye said the summit agreed to work on adding more value at home, across the value chain.
“We agree to support research in coffee value-addition to enable innovation and development of new products, as well as generate new knowledge on best practices, improved technologies and studies on varieties resilient to harsher climatic conditions, pests and diseases,” the president said.
Farmers said value-addition, even at the smallest scale, improves earnings.
Abdallah Mangalji, who has over 360 acres of coffee in Kabarole district, said low levels of value-addition across the country are a form of poor harvest handling.
“This only happens in Uganda. In other top coffee growing countries, every farmer makes it a point to add value, however small it may be,” he said.
Mangalji said just pulping coffee and selling it as kase (parchment) improves earnings by over 40%. For example, while a kilogramme of unpulped Robusta goes for sh2,500, pulped Robusta goes for sh8,000.
Because you need one-and-a-half kilogrammes (sh5,000) to get a kilogramme of parchment, it means that a farmer gets an additional sh3,000.
“Our farm strives to produce coffee of the best quality,” Mangalji said, but just like other farmers, the process is not good enough. Soon after harvesting, the coffee is tested for quality by putting it in a half drum full of water.
“All the coffee that sinks is good coffee and the one that floats is poor quality,” he said.
The floaters, as they are called, are removed, while the good coffee is taken to a pulping machine.
Mangalji acquired a machine that pulps fresh coffee and removes the skin before it is dried up. The coffee is dried on standard raised beds. There is a very elaborate coffee drying process at the farm.
“Because we are in an area that is cold, coffee takes long to dry,” he said, adding that because of this, he needs a solar dryer that can dry the coffee in a few days.
Processing coffee into a consumable requires roasting and then packaging.
Mangalji said this is what they must strive to do. Anthony Welishe, another coffee farmer in Bulambuli, Elgon region, bought his coffee pulper at sh350,000.
For Welishe, pulping gives him two advantages. The first is that the value of his coffee bean rises by at least sh3,000 from sh2,500 to sh7,000, while the other is that he gets the husks and uses them as manure on the farm.
“I bought my coffee pulper at sh350,000 from Katwe, a famous source of locally fabricated machinery in Kampala,” he said, adding that this is not expensive at all and farmers, even those with one acre, can afford it.
“If a farmer has one acre from which he earns at least sh4m per year, why not make a one-off purchase of this pulper?” Welishe wondered.
However, farmers say they need to be assisted by government to improve value-addition.
Farmers must start grading
On the sidelines of the summit was improving the value chain and post-harvest handling practices. For example, it was highlighted that many farmers do not even grade their coffee.
The real implications of poor post-harvest handling are seen at the grading stage when good quality coffee is separated from the poor one.
According to Edward Ssentamu Lutakoome from UCDA, coffee is graded in different categories.
“There are several ways through which coffee is graded,” he said, adding that they use the colour and smell of the green coffee to determine the botanical species, age of the crop, husbandry, handling and processing conditions.
“The sizes of coffee beans range in descending order from screen 18 to screen 15 screen 12, screen 11.9 and B.H.P(Broken Half Pieces). The bigger the size, the higher the quality of the coffee. For example, if your coffee is screen 25, then that has a higher quality compared to screen 12,” Lutakoome said.
The amount of moisture is measured by a moisture meter which is calibrated in percentages. Moisture meters can be bought from shops at as low as sh50,000.
The moisture content is a function of drying, storage and transportation conditions. This is when farmers who never properly dry their coffee realise their folly.
“If the coffee beans are stored when they are not properly dried up, that also affects the final flavour of the product,” Lutakoome said.
Defects count system is a useful means of assessing the quality of green beans. Defects like broken beans, black beans and stones often impart an undesirable flavour.
The defects count is function of husbandry (e.g. pest and disease control) and processing conditions. Coffee exporting dealers spend a lot of money hiring casual workers to pick out defective beans before they are packed.
“We have received coffee mixed with stones here. Or coffee that has got a lot of broken beans,” Amos Kisigi, the vice-chairman of the Uganda Coffee Traders and Processors Association, said.
The final grading involves the liquor content of the product. The liquor content is determined by carrying out cup-tasting. The liquor quality is a function of the coffee variety and crop husbandry, especially soil management.
“Coffee from different regions of the country and world has a different taste and aroma. So, to determine where a particular brand came from, a liquor taste.
