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Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The National Agriculture Research Organization-NARO has introduced three coffee varieties that are resistant to diseases and the dry spell.
The three varieties are NARO- Kituuza Robusta-NKR8, NKR9 and NKR10 generated in 2017. They were subjected to three years of testing before their launch to be given out to farmers.
They were launched on Saturday during the Mukono farm clinic held at the National Coffee Research Institute- NaCORI headquarters at Kituuza, Mukono District.
Dr Godfrey Kagezi a senior research officer at NaCORI notes that all the new varieties are environmental friendly and tested to survive under various weather conditions.
Dr Emmanuel Lyamulemye the Director Uganda Coffee Development Authority-UCDA says that UCDA has resorted to supplying resistant breeds to farmers. He says that more than 50,000 resistant cuttings are supplied to the authority on an annual basis to propagate to farmers and Operation Wealth Creation-OWC programme.
Richard Ssemakula one of the farmers at Mukono says the new varieties will enable them remain in the business of coffee growing.
According to Imelda Kaija, the Deputy Director-General in charge of Agriculture Technology Promotion at NaCORI the varieties on average yield produces 3,719kgs of hulled coffee beans per hectare per year.
Records by UCDA indicate that coffee wilt diseases have reduced coffee export from 4.2 million bags of green beans in 1996 to 2 million bags in 2006.
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