By Umaru Kashaka
Agriculture minister Frank Tumwebaze on Tuesday launched the registration of coffee farmers across the country in a bid to continue accessing the key European Union (EU) market.
He told a press conference at the Uganda Media Centre in Kampala that the registration is one of the requirements put forward by the EU for countries exporting coffee to the bloc.
The EU, the biggest market for Ugandan coffee, is keen on deforestation-free products and it has set regulations for that, aimed at bringing down greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity.
The EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) aims at ensuring that the coffee exported to the bloc is not sourced from farms that were established after cutting down natural forests (deforestation).
And this is where registration plays a key role.
The Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA) is now set to start registering all coffee value chain actors across the country free of charge.
Dr Gerald Kyalo, the UCDA director of development services, said the EUDR requires evidence of no deforestation, which necessitates tracing coffee back to the farmer.
“The law (EUDR) requires that we trace each kilogramme of coffee exported to the EU back to the producer,” he said.
The EUDR requires large companies trading in the commodities of cattle, cocoa, coffee, oil palm, rubber, soy and wood, as well as products derived from those commodities to prove that these goods or products do not originate from recently deforested areas or contribute to forest degradation.
As of June 2024, Italy remained the largest market for Uganda’s coffee exports, accounting for 41.96% of the total market share, according to the report on the performance of Uganda’s economy for July 2024.
Other significant markets for Uganda’s coffee exports in the same period included Germany and Spain, accounting for 10.55% and 5.40% of the total exports, respectively.
