KAMPALA, Uganda
By Shem Oirere
Whether it is the story of the Baganda people using coffee in a ritual sealing a blood brotherhood, the formal initiation of new comers or celebrating the birth of twins, the narratives of Uganda’s coffee culture are likely to take new importance as Uganda’s untold story unfolds.
The former British protectorate, once ranked as the 4th largest coffee producing country in the world, is seeking to revive its global standing. The newly adopted Uganda Coffee Roadmap (UCR) seeks to reclaim Uganda’s position in the competitive international coffee market where it now ranks 8th at 288,000 metric tons, slightly ahead of Mexico.
Deborah Malac, US Ambassador to Uganda, said: “consumers in the USA when looking at higher value chains want to know the story where the coffee came from and that is how you hook people to your coffee.”
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“In parts of Uganda coffee is a symbol of hospitality,” she told STiR coffee and tea magazine. “There is a bit of coffee culture, not only in drinking coffee but also growing and producing it,” she said.
“Uganda producers need to figure out their story. Whether it is production taking place among women farmers, producers need to look for this story, shape it and sell it,” she said.
With the re-launch of the national coffee roadmap by President Yoweri Museveni in April 2017, the Uganda coffee industry successfully retraced its steps and identified what went wrong during the decades when the country experienced a drastic decline in its production and export volumes.
President Museveni said Ugandan farmers are losing out in the international market because they earn $2 per kilo for exporting unprocessed coffee when there is the potential to earn up to $32 per kilo if they sold processed beans.
Consumption levels
The government and private sector have partnered to address obstacles that constrain export volumes, hold back value addition and result in a meager domestic consumption of locally produced coffee.
Uganda’s coffee roadmap establishes an ambitious export target of 20 million 60-kilo bags of coffee by 2025. Every effort is being directed at solving the ‘how’ necessary to achieve this figure. The ‘how’ involves planting quality rootstock; proper coffee farm management practices; high-level marketing of the country’s coffee; addressing the issue of costly farm-inputs, and eradicating counterfeit coffee from the market. Uganda grows both robusta and arabica varieties in a ration of 4:1. Partnerships are being sought with international customers who value Uganda’s robusta for its softer and mild cup characteristics.
Stakeholders in Uganda’s coffee sector are optimistic they will successfully address the ‘how’, positioning the country favorably in achieving not only to export 20 million bags of their beans but also increasing export earnings to $1.5 billion per year. The roadmap calls for increasing local coffee consumption to 15%, expanding acreage under coffee by 20% and establishing forays into new markets such as the Maghreb region and China. “The target is fairly ambitious, but you always have to set high targets unless you want to maintain the status quo,” says Uganda’s agriculture minister Vincent Ssempija. “Uganda’s coffee is the best in world in terms of the aroma. The only problem is with management of the coffee trees, gardens, and poor quality due to post-harvest handling,” he said.
Farmer organizations
The Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA), a state agency that promotes and oversee the coffee industry says it has given priority to addressing the quality of seed/planting material, farm practices, and also marketing in partnership with farmer organizations such as the Uganda Coffee Farmers Alliance (UCFA) and National Union of Coffee Agribusiness and Farm Enterprises (NUCAFE).
“We realized to achieve quality coffee production we must start from the seed. We now have certified seed gardens and we work with researchers from the National Coffee Research Institute in mapping coffee growing areas and which seed is suitable for which region,” said Emmanuel Niyibigira, managing director UCDA, which is responsible for research, promotion of production, controlling coffee quality and improving the marketing of coffee.
The collapse of former primary coffee cooperatives after the liberalization of the coffee sector led farmers to organize into business units. These units help them to access quality planting material and reasonably priced farm-inputs and train farmers in good production practices.
Robusta comprises of 80% of the nation’s crop. It is grown in low altitude districts in the Eastern, Central, Western and South Western regions with 20% cultivated in high altitude districts in Mount Elgon, Mount Ruwenzori and Mount Muhabura.
According to Tony Mugoya, who heads the UCFA secretariat that coordinates the regional unions formed by grassroots coffee factories with direct coffee producer membership, the agency is “supporting the adoption of best practices in farmers’ operations, facilitating access to business and managerial skills, promoting good leadership among coffee farmers’ organizations and also creating partnerships with other stakeholders in the industry.”
UCFA is structured to train farmers, encourage the sharing of skills among themselves and enables farmers to prioritize their training needs. “Requests for training on specific areas where they require information for better coffee production and processing are welcome,” he says.
Adding value
Separately, NUCAFE, an alliance of 125 coffee farmers associations with more than 100,000 coffee farming families, is also working with farmers to add value to their coffee before they sale.
“NUCAFE is working with coffee farmers to expand their role in the entire coffee industry chain and thus enable them earn more from their crop which they can re-invest in the coffee farm enterprise,” said executive Nucafe executive Joseph Nkandu.
Mobilization of farmers into organizations to enhance economies of scale has also opened opportunities for some of the growers to have a glimpse of the larger global market with some of their coffee, both through UCFA and Nucafe, already having been bought by international buyers because of their good quality.
Uganda’s development partners and international agencies are also supporting the farmers not only to access the international market that pay well but also enable them create partnerships with more buyers especially in markets outside the European Union such as USA, China, and Middle East and North Africa.
“Uganda is pursuing several coffee marketing initiatives including targeting new markets where we are trying to create structured demand for our coffee,” said Niyibigira.
The Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) expo held in Seattle, Wash., was one of the biggest marketing initiatives meant to link Uganda coffee producers, US coffee roasters/buyers and suppliers of equipment used in the processing of coffee in Uganda.
World Market
“This was a very useful event in helping restart the Uganda coffee as it starts to enter into world market,” said Ambassador Malac, who led a team of 20 producers, exporters and UCDA representatives to the Seattle Expo.
“We saw an opportunity to take the team to the Specialty Coffee Expo to help them get opportunity to see what some of the other countries are doing in marketing their coffee brand and also how to up their game to be competitive in the global market,” she said.
“A number of contacts and connections made would hopefully lead to deal or further discussions into ways of working together or how they can start improving their production again,” said Malac.