Coffee farming training for Monday

Monday, April 12 will bring a morning coffee aroma to your TV screens.  

This is because experts in coffee farming will be training farmers in basics that can help them earn more from coffee farming, as part of the ongoing Harvest Money virtual expo. 

One of the new aspects of coffee farming that will be trained is the number of trees per acre. 

Traditionally, farmers plant 450 trees in an acre of coffee, however, according to Joseph Nkandu, a coffee farmer in Mpigi and researcher on coffee, an acre can accommodate as many as 1,300 coffee trees. 

 Farmers call this the ‘Brazilian’ model because it was imported from Brazil. 

The Latin American country is one of the leading coffee-growing countries in the world. 

Uganda is meanwhile ranked as the 7th highest exporter of coffee in the world. 

Nkandu says the Brazilian spacing increases the tree population from the common 400 to 1330. 

“We have moved away from that tradition of planting only 450 trees to the ‘Brazilian model’ where we plant over 1300 plants,” Nkandu says. 

Nkandu will conduct the training with Edward Lutakome from the Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA). 

The expo kicked off on April 5 and will run up to April 19. The coffee training will be screened live on April 12 starting at 9am.

Nkandu also works as Executive Director, National Union of Coffee Agri Business (NUCAFE).  

He has lived most of his life not only drinking coffee but also researching its growth.  

His production per acre is higher than what most farmers get and his postharvest handling practices carry a lot of lessons for other farmers. 

Nkandu says that farmers make losses too due to poor harvesting and drying methods. 

 “We are going to train not just the A-Z of coffee management, but also marketing of the crop, but above all how to maximize earnings from an acre of coffee,” Nkandu says. 

During the expo training, he will show Ugandan farmers how to achieve this. 

Under this new method, coffee trees are planted at a spacing of one metre apart and the rows are three meters apart, implying that a farmer can have 1,333 Robusta coffee trees in an acre. 

This is a good innovation, that however also requires systematic application of fertilizers, since the acre will be feeding more trees than usual.  

Nkandu says that rather than the common 3x3 metres, he plants at 3x1 metre apart. 

But this system must be supported with enough fertilizers to nourish the soils. 

This is because the more trees per unit area, the more pressure on the fertility of the soils hence a need to replenish them. 

Planting should be carried out at the onset of rains. 

He says after planting he applies 20 grams of Single Super Phosphate around the plant to boost the rooting system.

“You can have three acres of traditional spacing in one acre using the Brazilian model,” Nkandu says. 

He further explains; “Population is increasing but land remains fixed. We have many smallholder farmers which call for land maximization to increase productivity.”