By Daniel Karibwije

Like a baby, the health and productivity of a person begins at conception. After nine months and three trimesters of pregnancy, a baby is born. Strategic investment is made by the mother through nutrition, supplementation and antenatal visits to the gynaecologist.

Critical interventions are made and decisions taken to ensure the pregnancy is fruitful. A healthy productive baby is born free of defects and critical diseases.

Coffee is no different.

There is excitement and hullabaloo from politicians and other quarters on value addition, which is at the tail end. However, if you add value to a poor-quality bean, it does not translate into coffee quality in the cup.

You will not get good prices from a bad bean roasted in the best machine. Miracles will not happen.

You need to add value on a good quality bean that is well-groomed right from conception in the mother garden, cuttings and seedlings. Like a baby, you get a good harvest at three years based on pruning, shade and good agricultural practices. Assistance with irrigation practices to progressive farmers boosts production. The goal is to increase output per coffee tree translating into higher output per acre. Increasing productivity per tree means more coffee beans, higher income and bigger foreign exchange earnings for Uganda.

Most people prefer to come for the coffee ‘baby-shower’ at the end-stage screaming value addition. The genesis of value addition is traced to the bean.

The heavy-lifting is done at the garden by coffee farmers.

Uganda’s quest to achieve 20 million coffee bags by 2030 requires a multi-pronged approach.

Public-private stakeholder interventions are key with farmers at the centre.

In the 2022/23 financial year, Uganda produced 5,761,549, 60kg bags. We have 14,238,451 bags to go.

We shall not close this gap merging Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA) with its mother ministry. This uncertainty is discouraging the coffee-value chain.

Last month, at the first coffee week held in Addis Ababa, transforming the African coffee sector through value addition was high on the agenda. Sustainable economic growth is realised when the farmer obtains full support. A balanced bottomup approach with farmers having a voice will bring transformation.

UCDA has played a major role encouraging new entrants to grow coffee. A combination of increased acreage and fertiliser usage will deliver the targeted bags by 2030. However, to achieve this dream, we had better keep the UCDA intact instead of merging it with the agriculture ministry. This shall be a major mistake we shall not recover from. Let’s not rock the boat.

UCDA requires more funding to bolster activities of smallholder farmers and distribute seedlings.

Extension workers should perform proactive coffee ‘antenatal visits’ to prevent diseases before they happen and treat sick coffee trees.

This ensures trees are productive and not stunted.

Bean quality is paramount.

Successful coffee farmers will inspire new farmers to join the coffee movement. Seeing is believing.

Dismantling UCDA will affect the competitiveness and value addition dreams. Tea has no supervisory authority and we know how they are struggling with quality issues. Just take a look at some of the big hotels in Kampala. They are serving Kenyan tea! Coffee will head the tea direction should UCDA be merged.

Value addition in the coffee bean calls for soil testing before planting.

Specialised coffee agronomy courses are important in professionalising the value chain. Quality of the coffee bean is king. Value addition should begin inside the coffee bean and progressively grow along the chain. Coffee preservation, packaging and branding will command better prices.