Uganda's coffee sector on track - World Bank expert

Jun 27, 2016

This was partly attributed to unscrupulous middlemen who purchased coffee in weight measures and only minded about their profits ignoring quality.

A technocrat from the World Bank has described Uganda's coffee sub-sector as one that has steadily developed and still developing.

Lucy Mamganga, a Senior Private Sector Development Specialist at the World Bank, told New Vision in an exclusive interview that in a period of 20 years ago, the sub-sector faced a lot of challenges that included poor regulation, low value addition as well as poor quality products.

This was partly attributed to unscrupulous middlemen who purchased coffee in weight measures and only minded about their profits ignoring quality.

 

Mamganga, noted that the sector was characterised by little participation in the value addition due to few players by then and singled out only Star Café Ltd as the only firm that was adding value to coffee.

However, contrary to the situation then, Mamganga said that sector is now diversified and has seen different players and activities like value addition coming on board.

"We supported the development of the sector policy in Uganda and as a result, both quality and quantity have increased reasonably and this has given hope to the players in the industry," she said after her tour at the National Union of Coffee Agribusinesses and Farm Enterprises (NUCAFE) factory at Namanve in Wakiso district on Wednesday.

The visit was part of a World Bank midterm review of the Competitiveness and Enterprise Development Program (CEDP) implemented by the Private Sector Foundation Uganda (PSFU) with funding from World Bank.

 he enior rivate ector evelopment pecialist for frica in orld ank ucy  anganga left chats with the xecutive irector of the ational nion of offee gribusiness and arm nterprises  oseph kadu The Senior Private Sector Development Specialist for Africa in World Bank, Lucy M. Manganga (left) chats with the Executive Director of the National Union of Coffee Agribusiness and Farm Enterprises (NUCAFE), Joseph Nkadu

 
NUCAFE is one of the beneficiaries of the Matching Grant Facility (MGF), one of the four components of the CEDP. Others are land management reforms, business registration & licensing and tourism competitiveness.

The five year grant program was launched last year after the government secured a sh336.3b ($100m) grant from the World Bank of which, sh26.9b ($8m) was allocated to the Private Sector.

Joseph Nkandu, NUCAFE's executive director, said that coffee farmers have now reached the epitome of the farmers' model that advocates for value addition to their products.

The finances provided by the Matching Grant Facility (MGF) enabled NUCAFE to acquire machinery used in value addition that include two 2 internal coffee roaster coffee beans silos, blending and mixing machines, packaging machine, designing and  as well as investing in the product research and development.

This, according to Lillian Akot Okura, CEPD's communication specialist, has benefited over 180 farmer associations and 2000 farming families as well as creating 130 and 180 permanent and temporary employment opportunities at the NUCAFE factory.

However, Mamganga cautions that a lot still has to be done in order sustain the trend like improvement in quality through improved post-harvest handling methods.

 

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