By Umar Nsubuga
In 1987, Paul Kayondo, 60, a resident of Kibanvu in Kigombe parish Luwero district took over the management of his father’s farm. By that time, he was working as a professional counsel and he had completed another agricultural course at Ssese Farm Institute.
When he retired in 2014, Kayondo has since developed the enterprise into a large Farm.
“I didn’t just stumble into farming, my father was a prominent farmer, so I grew up in a farming environment,” he says.
His father grew coffee, and bananas. It was Kayondo’s dream to keep his father’s legacy, and now he owns his farm.
“Today I work with my children to keep my father’s legacy going,” he says.
He has 14 acres of coffee, and a demonstration farm, which includes cabbages, greens, and carrots, among others.
Unlike most farmers who use herbicides and fertilisers, Kayondo grows his coffee organically.
“Farmers who sell un-pulped coffee lose tonnes of manure that they would have used to fertilise their plantations,” he says.
How he started
When Kayondo retired in 2014, he ventured fully into farming.
“I chose coffee because I was familiar with it. I had dealt in coffee before that’s why I started growing it. I also decided to buy my land because I had a fear of putting my projects on the family land. I bought 10 acres of land on which I grow the crop,” Kayondo says.
I worked as a counsellor from 1978 to 2014 at Luwero and Bombo hospitals.
“I had saved some money and I used it to buy 10 acres of land and also spent almost all my salary for the last pay on buying coffee seedlings,” he says.
“Before I started, I had attended several trainings on coffee growing organised by farmers and other agricultural organisations and I learnt how to manage the crop,” he says.
To boost his project, Kayondo sought a SACCO loan of sh5m and acquired some tools at his farm.
In 2014, he started applying organic manure to boost soil fertility.
“I also started growing vegetables on 2 acres,” he says.
This included spinach, eggplant, ntula, cabbage, and dodo. That year, he bagged sh6m from two vegetable harvests.
“In 2016, I had set up a two-acre banana plantation, which I expanded to six acres, though I had the challenge of thieves, the coffee had to take some time,” he adds.
He says, his visits to agricultural trainings and workshops inspire him a lot.
“Many coffee farmers have failed to understand coffee growing. After the first harvest, a coffee plant is capable of sustaining itself in terms of nutrients. Coffee yields peak at around five years,” he says.
Conservation practices
The farm is practising environmental conservation by tree planting.
“The more the trees, the more we add to environmental conservation,” he says.
Adopting organic manure
Charles Kimbugwe, a resident says what makes Kayondo’s coffee garden distinct from others is just a concept he obtained from his parents, institute, and trainings from different workshops he has attended.
“That’s why I always consult him,” Kimbugwe says.
“If there is anybody who took these trainings it is me. Many coffee farmers have failed to understand the secret behind coffee. But, ideally after the first harvest, each coffee plant is capable of sustaining itself in terms of nutrients,” observes Kayondo.
Kayondo uses the fresh husks pulped from his coffee harvest as manure for the shamba. Most coffee farmers either dry the coffee and sell the husks with them or sell the coffee fresh, still with the husks.
Kayondo says that this is a very big mistake.
“Why should a coffee farmer waste tonnage and tonnages of manure that would have maintained his coffee plant by selling his coffee fresh to a dealer,” he wonders.
Kayondo digs the pits, which are three by two feet, and puts decomposed cow dung, which he mixes with soil.
He then waits for two weeks before planting the coffee seedlings in the pits or matooke suckers.
“When my trees are still young, I apply Nitrogen-Phosphorus and Potassium (NPK). The fertilizers are placed at the base of the stem. And when it rains, it can easily dissolve in the soil,” he says.
How is admired
Gloria Kyeyune, a resident and neighbour says Kayondo involves himself in every farm activity and not just leaving it to the workers.
“I think this helps him to monitor all the activities and costs at his farm”, she says.
Highly paying
According to Kayondo, growing Robusta coffee is a highly-paying investment and it is now the crop for the young and elderly to resort to if they want good money quickly.
“I have a strong reason for recommending cloned Robusta coffee. Besides growing pretty fast, it is high yielding and it has a large bean size, it is also harvested twice every year,” he advises
Pulping coffee
Kayondo pulps coffee beans from the fresh husk. The process is done by a hand-pulping device.
He says he bought it at sh2.5m.
For Kayondo pulping gives him two advantages. The first is that the value of his coffee bean rises by at least sh12,000 from sh4,000, while the other is that he gets the husks and uses them as manure on the farm.
“By that time, the husks have not only been drained of the acidic content that is dangerous to any crop but have crumbled into fine crisps of dark soils that I scoop and deposit around every coffee plant,” he explains.
Once the coffee is pulped, it is washed clean and spread on strong polythene mats for a few days until it dries. When it has dried, it’s grained into coffee and he also sells some.
“In case of emergencies, I get village sacco loans,” he says.
This comes when they need to pay worker’s wages in time to keep weeds at bay.
Management
“To ensure the smooth running of the farm, I involved my family in all the farm activities. We meet weekly to get performance reports, and to see the challenges and way forward of the farm. We then decide and prioritise in regard to demand and the available finances,” he says.
At times Kayondo says he buys items including seeds, pesticides, veterinary drugs, and weed killers in advance when prices are low.
“The main problems on my farm are diseases and pests. I control them by spraying frequently,” he says.
Kayondo says to control diseases and pests, a farmer has to be keen in looking out for them.
“One needs proper monitoring to detect any pests and diseases,” Kayondo says.
Expenditure
Annually, a rough estimate of sh500,000 goes to pesticides, while another sh1.5m goes to a labour force of six casual workers and five family members whom he also pays, all of them are recruited to tend to his coffee plantation.
He says after deducting farm requirements he saves like sh500,000.
When the harvest exercise begins, he hires a labour force of 20 people and pays sh7,000-15,000 per day but this depends on the service at the farm.
Mistakes and lessons
“I learnt that for quicker returns, use of modern technologies in agriculture, especially coffee farming is the way to go,” he says.
I have made several mistakes but I recall when didn’t spray pests attacked and destroyed the yields by 65 percent.
I learnt that, unlike other crops, one should never relax with improved varieties if the enterprise is to succeed.
What Kayondo has achieved from coffee
He uses proceeds from coffee to pay school fees for his grandchildren in good schools.
He has also expanded his farm from a few acres to more than 12.
“I have since bought 11 acres of land around the village, which I plan to use as expansion of my coffee garden,” explains Kayondo.
Additionally, he has acquired local cows to add to his income from coffee. His dream is to acquire a piece of land in the business centre of Luwero town.
Plans
To expand the coffee shamba from 10 to 20 acres
To turn the farm into a learning centre. Kayondo plans to modernize his farm into a model farm in 10 years.
“I wish to also promote farming for export by empowering a bigger section of the community with knowledge on commercial farming and best farm practices,” he says.
Adding value
Kayondo says sometimes, the yields depend on the weather conditions. After harvesting the coffee beans, they are put in a drum full of water.
On the other hand, the good coffee is taken to a pulping machine, where the red skin is removed. After pulping, the coffee is dried on raised beds. Kayondo says most Ugandan coffee farmers have not embraced value addition.
Challenges
“We do not have key social amenities such as water,” he says.
As a result, he spends a lot of money on fetching water from the borehole to the farm.
At the moment, the entire farm does not use irrigation because the equipment is not there.
However, when the coffee trees were still young, he hired workers who used to ferry water from the nearby borehole, to water the seedlings.
According to Kayondo, the unpredictable weather pattern and the shift of planting seasons, the prolonged droughts and pests are the biggest challenges.
What people say
Scovia Najjuma, his wife at the farm
We emphasise the quality of the produce we take to the market. This is why we have many clients of our coffee. We run the plantation through consensus and that is why things are smooth.
Ronald Mwanje, friend and a farmer
Before Kayondo advised me, I did not know that weeding a coffee plantation was important. When I started pruning, weeding, and applying pesticides to my coffee, my yields almost tripled.
Susan Nakalega, a neighbour
Kayondo freely shares knowledge on coffee farming with us. I have learnt a lot about soil fertility conservation from him.
