10
13/14
performed in a volatile fashion. But the outright prices on the
key indicator global markets – London and New York – have
firmedup strongly. Themain reason for this is reducedoutput
from the giant producer Brazil. In early January a large trade
house revised itscropestimates forBrazil and forecastaglobal
deficit for the supply and demand balances. Much of the rest
of this year has seen a great deal of focus on crop estimates
in Brazil – in fact the whole global market place is starting to
become a little weary of all of the numbers emanating from
Brazil. It does, however; now appear that there is a growing
consensus of a strong set back in overall output from Brazil
– the king of coffee. To put this into simple perspective as of
now, and taking some common average forecasts, Brazil will
actually produce as much as 10 or more million bags less.
Crop forecasting as we all know is an imperfect science and
the truthwill only emerge later in the year. But there is enough
evidence to confirm a considerable supply side reduction.
On the face of it and given what we know today, global
prices look unlikely to collapse – this is incidentally what
we forecasted a year ago when values were much lower
than today and during the past few days there has been a
surge upwards and I believe these current levels which are
significantly above the cost of production in Uganda could
well hold. Even if they were to retrace, the price basis for
Uganda is at a level conducive to the planting and growing of
coffee on sustainable andprofitable basis. Good news.
President
I
would like to thank the Secretariat of the Uganda Coffee
Federation [UCF] for all of their hard work during the last
year. The small team is led by the Executive Director, Betty
Namwagala. SamsonEmong is her number two and they are
both supportedby SylviaChelimo.
At the last Annual General Meeting of the UCF a new Board
was appointedwhichwill be ledbyMr. FredLuzindawhohas
awealthof experience in thecoffee industryandhaving retired
from Uganda Coffee Development Authority [UCDA] is busy
organisinghisowncoffee farmingand relatedbusinesses.His
enthusiasm for theUgandanCoffee Industry isboundlessand
I am surewewill all benefit from his endeavours.
I have immensely enjoyed my tenure as President of the
UCF and can unashamedly confirm that all of the hard work
was done by my co-directors who are all champions of the
Uganda Coffee Industry. A big note of thanks is in order for
Ishak Lukenge, Hannington Karuhanga, Robert Waggwa-
Nsibirwa, andAyubKalule.
Iwish thePresident, theBoardofDirectorsand theSecretariat
much success in their work for theUCF and itsmembers.
Coffeeprices
With respect to coffee values – outright futures, differentials
and the arbitrage – these have, as we are all fairly used to,
DavidBarry,
UCFPresident
