Coffee farmers encouraged to adopt Brazil's ideas to increase production

Promoters of coffee growing in Uganda have been advised to adopt ideas from big coffee producing countries like Brazil who are the leading exporters of the crop in the world.

The call was made by Carlos Brando from P&A, a Brazilian coffee marketing company in Uganda to show case different coffee technologies right from the farm to the cup.

He said productivity will not grow if the famer is not supported to access finance, inputs like fertilizers, machinery and equipment so they can produce more coffee per hectare like it is in Brazil.

He made the call at a press conference a head of a three day coffee technologies expo starting on Thursday till Saturday at the UMA multipurpose hall, Lugogo.

The expo organised by the Brazafric, a Brazilian company promoting agriculture  and environment conservation solutions and Africa Coffee Academy with an aim of showcasing different technologies and machinery needed in the coffee sector.

The Regional Manager BrazAfric Enterprises Limited Sakwa Readon (Right) explaining how a Coffee Pulper machine used for coffee pulping (removing the coffee red cover ready for drying) works shortly after the press briefing held at the offices as the Technical Sales Officer Noel Okyua looks on. Photo by Shamim Saad.

 

According to Brando some places in Uganda are producing two tons of coffee due to several reasons but the average for the country is 500 kilos.

"Why can't the neighbor go across the fence and copy what the other is doing, am not saying copy exactly what other countries  are doing but get ideas and modify them to suit the needs of your country," said Brando.

He said the other option is by making sure that farmers have incomes which can be realized if they have enough coffee to sell. The same money can now be used to by technologies which will lead to quality of coffee hence addition incomes.

"To make sure that farmers have incomes, they should be brought together  empowered  to buy inputs and equipment together, that is perhaps what we have to do to increase production," added Brando.

The other option is to increase productivity of existing coffee fields using the latest technologies in addition before opening more coffee fields, he added.

Robert Wagwa Nsibirwa, the executive director of the Africa Coffee Academy said their desire is to increase coffee export to at least 10 million bags, up from the current 3.5million bags.

Nsibirwa added there is renewed interest in coffee growing in the country driven by government's provision of free seedlings and opening up more coffee growing areas in Northern Uganda.

 The three-day expo will have 40 exhibitors half of these will be exhibiting equipment and machinery, half will be farmer groups showing what they are doing along the coffee value chain.

This will run concurrently with workshops to demonstrate how the machines work, how farmer kits work. Also experts from Turkey will demonstrate how coffee is roasted while those from Brazil will showcase how the grading, cleaning and processing is done.

The Regional Manager  BrazAfric Enterprises Limited Sakwa Readon (Right) explaining how a Coffee Pulper machine used for coffee pulping (removing the coffee red cover ready for drying) works shortly after the press briefing held at the offices as the Technical Sales Officer Noel Okyua looks on. Photo by Shamim Saad.