By Nelson Kiva
The good coffee market prices and the Government’s efforts to promote it are prompting parts of the country which were non-coffee growing areas to fully embrace it, Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UDCA) has revealed.
UCDA said Rukiga district is among the latest areas to embrace coffee growing, adding that it was unheard of in the district before.
Sylvia Alinaitwe, who promotes coffee growing in the district, said; “We are targeting planting at least two-three million coffee trees in the next three years.”
Alinaitwe and other residents’ efforts have been boosted by UCDA through Operation Wealth Creation (OWC), which provides coffee seedlings and technical guidance to farmers.
“I decided to start promoting coffee growing after an interaction with Gen. Salim Saleh, the co-ordinator of OWC,” she said.
Alinaitwe said during the launch of the Rukiga mass coffee planting campaign at Nyabuyungu sub-county in Rukiga district last week.
Coffee has continued to play a leading role in Uganda’s economy, contributing between 20-30% of the foreign exchange.
Data from UCDA indicates that a total of 6.52 million bags worth $790.33m (about sh2.9 trillion) were exported between April 2022 and March 2023.
The coffee value chain has a high employment potential and poverty reduction effects, more especially on smallholder farming households.
Currently, 1.7 million coffee households employ five million Ugandans.
According to UCDA, Kigezi sub-region and in particular Rukiga district is one of the main sub-regions that had been left out of the coffee money economy.
“This is because farmers have old coffee trees that can no longer yield good coffee,” Jimmy Baluku, a principal coffee development officer at UCDA, said.
He said the agriculture ministry, through UCDA, embarked on a programme of rehabilitation of old and underproductive coffee trees to increase their productivity.
“The above two million coffee seedlings given out in Rukiga have the potential to produce 4,000 tonnes of marketable coffee equivalent to 67 bags of processed coffee of 60 kilogrammes each for export.”
Baluku said the price of Arabica coffee last season was sh15,000 per kilogramme, and going by this means Rukiga has capacity to realise sh60b from a season.
Representing Gen. Saleh at the launch, Col Jerome Bashaija tasked farmers with looking after their seedlings well, saying coffee will help to boost the local economy and incomes of their households.
Coffee development
To spur exports, Uganda has set up a coffee development plan. Coffee foreign exchange earnings are projected to hit $1.5b (about sh5.6 trillion) by 2025, boosting the livelihoods of over 1.8 million households.
As a producer of coffee, Uganda ranks number two in Africa and eighth in the world.
Globally, world coffee demand for consumption stands at 178.5 million 60kg bags against the 168.5m 60kg bags that are currently being supplied by the coffee producing countries.
