But farmers need more government support
Smallholder farmers play a major role in maintaining the production of the main cash crop in the country. But just a few farmers live a decent life as many do not benefit from the crop since they sell it in raw form. The National Union of Coffee Agribusinesses and Farm Enterprises Ltd (NUCAFE) which is a private, non profit making association of coffee farmers was rebranded in 2003 to ensure coffee farmers profitably own their coffee along the value chain for sustainable coffee production and improved livelihoods. The association began in 1995 as the Uganda Coffee Farmers Association (UCFA).
Today, according Joseph Nkandu, executive director NUCAFE, the association has 125 coffee farmers’ associations representing over 100,000 farming families across major coffee-producing districts. NUCAFE’s vision is ‘to establish a sustainable farmer owned and operated organisation for the benefit of the members and stakeholders’.
Nkandu says coffee agribusiness in Uganda has high potential to contribute not only to foreign exchange earnings but also to meaningful household incomes and improved rural livelihoods. He says the coffee value chain still “presents a paradox, where smallholder coffee farmers who produce 98% of Uganda coffee have continued to be in a crisis. Coffee can only be profitable once transformed into more value added products while farmers are maintaining ownership. Farmers are struggling on their own to move away from doing business as usual (selling unprocessed coffee) to more value added. This requires concerted effort from Government and a better enabling and supportive business environment in form of a coffee policy and law. The current law only benefits those in the downstream of the value chain leaving the goose that lays the golden egg. This explains why the Uganda coffee sector has stagnated averaging 3 million 60kg bags since 1960s. When you compare Uganda and Vietnam, you discover that Uganda coffee sector has registered almost no growth since 1960 whereas Vietnam that started coffee production in the late 1970s produces 16 million bags.
Interestingly, the oil sector that has just been discovered already has a policy but coffee which has been here for ages efforts are just being made to make a National Coffee Policy. This is in spite of coffee contributing “on average 20% to foreign exchange earnings and about 5% to GDP. This translates into income to more than 1.2million households that are directly employed or benefit from coffee. Therefore the contribution of coffee to poverty reduction and growth of the economy is very high,” says Nkandu.
Although the coffee industry in Uganda is underdeveloped as compared to the coffee industries of many countries even though Uganda is the birth place of Robusta coffee and the second largest coffee exporter in Africa, the industry presents opportunities of increasing coffee volumes from the historical average of 3 million bags per year to over 4.5 million bags according to Nkandu.
“This requires investment in the research and mass production of quality seedlings; replacing obsolete processing technology and moving to grading of coffee by the farmers themselves for better value addition and coffee quality.”
Uganda’s coffee consumption is only 5% of the production despite the coffee culture in some ethnic groups (Baganda) which could be built on to create a domestic market. This requires investment in coffee roasting both small and commercial backed by generic coffee consumption campaign.
NUCAFE has helped in enhancing the quality and value at farmer level for increased incomes and improved livelihoods. “Sometime back farmers were selling coffee in form of flowers at Shs 222 per tree or kiboko at an average of Shs 1,000 per kilogram. But now farmers are selling graded coffee and are capable of earning at least 50% extra per kg of green coffee beans. In partnership with DANIDA Agricultural Sector Programme Support (ASPS), NUCAFE established nine modern coffee nurseries each with a capacity to produce at least 100,000 coffee plantlets per year. Therefore, every year at least 900,000 seedlings are to be distributed to the farmers,” Nkandu said.
Accordingly, a total of 781 metric tonnes of Fair Average Quality (FAQ) coffee worth over Uganda Shillings 2.281 billion were linked to NUCAFE in 2008 indicating a percentage increase of almost 24% from 630 metric tonnes marketed in 2007. This resulted in Shs 695.3 million as added value going to the member farmers.
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