Kibaale youth to earn millions from coffee farming

Jul 23, 2014

A cross-section of youth from Kibaale district are set to earn sh980m from coffee farming projects, courtesy of the employment mitigation initiatives spearheaded by a Makerere University Professor Samuel Kyamanywa.

By David Ssempijja

A cross-section of youth from Kibaale district are set to earn sh980m from coffee farming projects, courtesy of the employment mitigation initiatives spearheaded by a Makerere University Professor Samuel Kyamanywa.


The professor of entomology was induced into building modern coffee villages as a strategic intervention to assist communities out of poverty. The project was launched with the formation and training of Bulegete, Mikole, Kyawanyana (B.M.K) youth Group in Lubaya Sub-parish in Bwanswa Sub-county.

Between 2014 and 2020, Kyamanywa plans to have engaged 100 youth up from the current 40 the project started with, with each youth cultivating 2.5 acres comprising 500 coffee trees. The projected production returns by 2020 is 180 tons of graded coffee valued at between sh900m and sh1.1b when exported.

“Uganda sits on a time bomb of youth unemployment; we need to revive coffee farming as a tool to boost job opportunities among the youth groups,” he said.

He was addressing B.M.K group members during a coffee value chain training conducted by at technical team from The Consortium to enhance University Responsiveness to Agribusiness Development (CURAD) and the National Union of Coffee Agribusiness and Farm Enterprises (NUCAFE), the two bodies will be part of the whole project for support.

Kyamanywa recollects that in the 1960s up to the late 1980 coffee used to be the main source of income that enable farmers to build permanent homes, pay school fees and have good livelihood but all that is dwindling because of the outbreak coffee wilt disease, a problem that was compounded by a breakdown in the coffee marketing infrastructure with Kibaale being among the most affected areas.

“The coffee village established here at Bwanswa sub-county will hopefully be propagated elsewhere in the country, the farming village with serve as a centre of excellence serving purposes of research to the advantage of those seeking to revive modern coffee farming,” Kyamanywa said.

The CURAD Founding Director Joseph Nkandu told New Vision in an interview that the village benefits from coffee farming would be rooted using the Farmer Ownership Model in facilitating marketing, the enables ownership of the crop through different nodes of value addition systems up to the level of marketing graded, roasted of ground coffee.

“The system will also include putting in place mechanisms of planting disease resistant high yielding breeds, quality controls, bulking centre, identifying processing facilities and establishing marketing channels between the association and the target buyers,” he said.

Mugisha Benard, one of the beneficiaries is optimistic that the modern coffee farming revival agenda in his home area will help him market his coffee processed after bilking with group members to enjoy large economies of scale.

It remains to be seen whether the plan to set up coffee villages will help Uganda in increasing her coffee exports that has stagnated between 2.5 to 3 million bags per year for the last four decades.

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