Best Farmers 2025: Alfred Ojok's Coffee leads him to top Acholi Region

VISION GROUP | HARVEST MONEY | BEST FARMERS | NWOYA

In February, 2014 after leaving the sugarcane business, Alfred Ojok, 33 years and a resident of Lalar Village, Paminyai sub-county, Nwoya district started a coffee plantation. He says he had realized that coffee is a long term investment.

Between August and September 2014, he dug coffee holes and in 2015, he planted 450 of clonal Robusta seedlings on one acre. Buying the seedlings cost him sh135,000.

“The highest amount I ever got from selling sugarcane was sh800,000 in 2012 which I had planted in one acre in some swampy area around Unyama subcounty. So, in 2017 when I got sh3Million from selling coffee, I could not believe it….I had never held such an amount in my life,” he says

 Learning that coffee is a long term investment which eradicate poverty made Ojok to invest all his energy in it.  

“I paid my O and A level school fees using money I got from selling sugarcane. This had put my health at risk. Luckily enough, I started hearing about coffee growing and decided to give it a try after researching about the returns one makes from coffee”

Since 2015 to-date, Ojok has 25 acres of coffee, three acres of fruits including avocado, jackfruit, oranges and two acres of cocoa farm and his farm. He has since named his farm, Hasting Coffee located at Lalar Village, Paminyai Subcounty, Nwoya district. It has improved the standard of living of those surrounding him who usually go to do casual labour there.

How he started

Ojok’s journey into becoming a renowned coffee farmer started in 2015 when he failed to join university. He had dreamed of becoming a computer programmer after studying physics, chemistry and mathematics at Advanced Level.  He thought one cannot excel in life without going to university.

“When I failed to join university, I decided to make good use of the 60 acres of my father gave us his four sons,” he reveals

Ojok did not have any knowledge on how to plant or maintain coffee.

“I was afraid to start it on a large scale thinking I might fail since I lacked knowledge in agricultural practices. But decided to start with one acre after the coffee farmer I had bought the seedlings from taught me how to plant coffee, the spacing”

This is the tenth year running that Vision Group, together with the Embassy of the Netherlands, KLM Airlines, dfcu Bank and Koudijs Animal Nutrition, are running the Best Farmers competition. The 2025 competition run from March to November, culminating in today’s awards ceremony.