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We all like high prices – with high prices we can do more.
We can invest aggressively andwe can encourage farmers to
invest and promote their businesses. And farmers can earn a
good return for their endeavours.
Competition
The internal environment in Uganda remains, extremely
competitive confirming the efficiency of the free market. The
number of processors and exporters continues to growwith
significant levels of investment beingmade in all segments of
the value chain.
Production
Totalexports fromUganda thiscoffeeyear lookset tobearound
3.6m bags or 216,000metric tons indeed almost identical to
last year’s output which was the highest level for 15 years.
This is further good news. Obviously, weather conditions and
absolutepricesat farmgateare thekeydriverswhen it comes
to coffee production, but – as we all now accept – themajor
issue facing theUgandan coffee producing community is that
of productivity.
With an average yield of 10 bags of green coffee per ha - or
250 kgof greencoffeeper acre –Uganda’s coffee farmers are
notmakinggooduseof theirgardens.Vietnamesesmallholder
farmers harvest on average 40 bags per ha, four timesmore
thanwedo. These farmershadnever set their eyesonacoffee
treeuntil 25 years agowhereasweare theoriginof Robustas.
COREC trials show that such yield levels are also possible in
Uganda. With an enabling environment that provides access
to knowledge, inputs and credit, Uganda’s coffee farmers can
easily improveupon their coffee yieldsand thus their incomes.
This isour commongoal andweareall – toa lesser or greater
extent – playing our part to achieve this. The UCF applauds
the renewed commitment of the Government of Uganda
to transform agriculture and create the embedded services
that the agricultural sector needs to develop. The hoped
for rescinding of VAT on agricultural inputs is an example of
Government responsiveness to the agricultural sector of our
economy.
Farmers both old and new need to embrace farming as a
good commercial business. This is important for incomes and
to the future of our entire industry.
Replanting
In order to achieve larger export volumes, replanting is really
important. In the past there have been some good strides
taken in seedling multiplication and distribution. MUZARDI,
for example, is doingwell. They are amongst the first with an
established CWD resistant mother garden and have started
handing out CWD resistant seedlings to affiliated nurseries.
Overall,wearehowevernowherenear enough toanyconcrete
developments to supply the entire market place. UCDA,
supportedby theGovernment of Uganda, is actively engaged
in the promotion of coffee planting and replanting.
I have immensely enjoyedmy tenureas
President of theUCFand canunashamedly
confirm that all of thehardworkwasdoneby
my co-directorswhoareall championsof the
UgandaCoffee Industry. Abignoteof thanks
is inorder for IshakLukenge, Hannington
Karuhanga, RobertWaggwa-Nsibirwa, and
AyubKalule.
