The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Government has said that the proposed registration of coffee farmers will cut off middlemen and also ensure development of the coffee sector in the country.
Government through the National Coffee bill 2018 seeks to register and license coffee farmers.
The bill also proposes that land, where the coffee is to be grown, shall be evaluated by the authority and deemed to be suitable or not for coffee growing.
In the bill, it also proposed that the size and number of coffee trees, names and details of the farmers, coffee buyers and sellers among others are registered.
It also proposes that where the landowner is different from the coffee owner, the landowner and details shall be registered.
Appearing before the parliamentary committee on Agriculture which is scrutinizing the bill today, the Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA) and Government through the Ministry of Agriculture said the registration of farmers will organize the sector and work to the advantage of the farmers.
Apollo Kamugisha, the Director Development Services at UCDA says with the new proposal, the middlemen will be cut off as coffee growing will be standardized and farmers will have better market opportunities.
He says currently, coffee farmers get peanuts in terms of pay while the middlemen are enriching themselves.
Kamugisha says there is need to know coffee farmers, the quantity and quality of coffee in the country, and in cases of diseases, how many coffee trees are affected so as to facilitate Government intervention.
He says the registration will help in comprehensive planning of coffee farmers when it comes to issues of connecting buyers to farmers, setting up irrigation systems and extension services.
The Minister of Agriculture Vincent Ssempijja says that there are no records on the exact number of coffee farmers are in the country. He says registering farmers will ensure credibility in the Ugandan coffee sector, as Government will be involved in supporting the farmers.
He says in order to achieve the coffee target of exporting 20 million bags by 2022, there needs to be deliberate action on coffee business.
Janet Grace Okori-moe, the Chair of the committee asked the Government to go slow on the process and ensure that Ugandans understand the purpose of the bill. She says that Government should look at regulating the sector and not restricting the farmers.
According to UCDA, Coffee exports in March 2018 amounted to 333,346 60-kilo bags worth US $ 35.74 million. This comprised of 224,036 bags worth 21 million of Robusta and 109,310 bags worth 13.88 million of Arabica.
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In 1908 the racist and brutal colonial government of Governor Hesketh Bell passed the harsh Uganda Cotton Ordinance all ostensibly aimed at improving cotton production and quality and it imposed such stringent regulations on Ugandan peasant farmers that the same governor admitted the success of the ordinance depended on the prevailing feudal and undemocratic chiefly rule of Buganda, Busoga etc.
So successful was this ordinance that the Uganda protectorate was second only to the much larger and greater populated Indian colony in cotton production in the “the Empire the sun never sets on “.
With that success built on the back breaking labor doing cotton cultivation by the Ugandan peasants it was surprising that the greatest beneficiaries were not these hard working Ugandan farmers but the cotton millers of Manchester who got a world class supply of cotton cheaply, the Uganda protectorate government whose tax revenues were greatly boosted and the cheating Indian middlemen, ginners etc who were given monopoly of buying, ginning etc at expense of aspiring Ugandan businessmen.
Today more than hundred years later in a supposedly independent and African majority ruled Uganda, a national coffee bill is before the Ugandan parliament with similar grand aspirations like that 1908 Uganda Cotton ordinance and alarmingly similar restrictive and stringent clauses.
Also recently His Excellency the president rejected and returned to parliament the Sugar Bill for not being pro Madhvani, Mehta etc by having clauses that would have created the unfair and undeserved equity in the independent Sugar out growers land and labor for Madhvani et al by compelling and dictating that the sugar out growers unfortunate enough to be within a twenty five km radius of the Indian owned Madhvani, Mehta etc sugar mills can only supply the produce of their labor to these Indian sugar mills at prices dictated by these very Indian owners.
With the president’s implicit pro Indian and anti Ugandan bias in his acts and speeches one is tempted to imagine him instructing the issuance of those suggested licenses in this national coffee bill to strictly to his Indian friends which wont augur well for the Ugandan coffee farmers given the sharp and unethical business practices of most of these so called Indian investors/president’s friends.
These are interesting times we are living in having a president who behaves and treats Ugandans no better than did the racist patronizing British colonial ruler with this same president reversing some of the Obote and Amin pro everyday Ugandan achievements like nationalizing of all Ugandan land, expulsion of parasitic and racist Indians, the Licensing Act of 1969 that offered protection to nascent Ugandan businessmen, nationalizing of foreign companies and so on..
At the end of Mr. Museveni presidency Uganda will be back to the unequal , unfair etc pre-1972 Uganda with foreigners dominating and controlling Uganda’s economy and a small exclusive nepotistic tribal political oligarchy living off the back breaking labor of the suffering poor majority.
In 1908 the racist and brutal colonial government of Governor Hesketh Bell passed the harsh Uganda Cotton Ordinance all ostensibly aimed at improving cotton production and quality and it imposed such stringent regulations on Ugandan peasant farmers that the same governor admitted the success of the ordinance depended on the prevailing feudal and undemocratic chiefly rule of Buganda, Busoga etc.
So successful was this ordinance that the Uganda protectorate was second only to the much larger and greater populated Indian colony in cotton production in the “the Empire the sun never sets on “.
With that success built on the back breaking labor doing cotton cultivation by the Ugandan peasants it was surprising that the greatest beneficiaries were not these hard working Ugandan farmers but the cotton millers of Manchester who got a world class supply of cotton cheaply, the Uganda protectorate government whose tax revenues were greatly boosted and the cheating Indian middlemen, ginners etc who were given monopoly of buying, ginning etc at expense of aspiring Ugandan businessmen.
Today more than hundred years later in a supposedly independent and African majority ruled Uganda, a national coffee bill is before the Ugandan parliament with similar grand aspirations like that 1908 Uganda Cotton ordinance and alarmingly similar restrictive and stringent clauses.
Also recently His Excellency the president rejected and returned to parliament the Sugar Bill for not being pro Madhvani, Mehta etc by not having clauses that would have created the unfair and undeserved equity in the independent Sugar out growers land and labor for Madhvani et al by compelling and dictating that the sugar out growers unfortunate enough to be within a twenty five km radius of the Indian owned Madhvani, Mehta etc sugar mills could only supply the produce of their labor to these Indian sugar mills at prices dictated by these very Indian owners.
With the president’s implicit pro-Indian and anti-Ugandan bias in his acts and speeches one is tempted to imagine him instructing the issuance of those suggested licenses in this national coffee bill to strictly to his Indian friends which wont augur well for the Ugandan coffee farmers given the sharp and unethical business practices of most of these so called Indian investors/president’s friends.
Also these are interesting times we are living in having a president who behaves and treats Ugandans no better than did the racist patronizing British colonial rulers and with this same president reversing some of the Obote and Amin pro everyday Ugandan achievements like nationalizing of all Ugandan land, expulsion of parasitic and racist Indians, the Licensing Act of 1969 that offered protection to nascent Ugandan businessmen, nationalizing of foreign companies and so on..
Finally at the end of Mr. Museveni presidency Uganda will be back to the unequal , unfair etc pre-1972 Uganda with foreigners dominating and controlling Uganda’s economy and a small exclusive nepotistic tribal political oligarchy living off the back breaking labor of the suffering poor majority.