Cocoa factory to be set up in Bundibugyo

Aug 26, 2009

AGRIBUSINESS<br><br>A factory to process cocoa beans into intermediate products, including cocoa butter, powder and paste for export, is to be set up in Bundibugyo district.

AGRIBUSINESS

By Ronald Kalyango

A factory to process cocoa beans into intermediate products, including cocoa butter, powder and paste for export, is to be set up in Bundibugyo district.

Agriculture minister Hope Mwesigye disclosed the information during a visit to Esco Uganda’s factory in Bundibugyo. Esco Uganda exports dried cocoa beans to Europe.

“We are in final negotiations with an investor to have a factory established in the country,” said Mwesigye.

Esco Uganda site manager Godfrey Kizito said they process 5,000 tonnes of cocoa beans annually, which they export to the United Kingdom.

The company has 7,000 out-growers from whom it buys a kilo of cocoa beans at sh3,600.

Kizito said they give the farmers planting materials, tarpaulins and trays.

John Muwanga, the coordinator of Support for Tea and Cocoa Seedlings Project at the Ministry of Agriculture, said Uganda’s cocoa exports for 2008 fetched $26m from 13,000 metric tonnes, up from $20m from 10,006 tonnes the previous year.

The sector expects to earn $35m from 15,000 tonnes this year. Muwanga said under the strategic intervention programme launched in 2002, their target is to produce 50,000 metric tonnes per year by 2014.

Under the programme, cocoa seedlings are distributed to farmers and one million seedlings have been planted annually since 2002 in the beneficiary districts.

The districts include Mukono, Jinja, Kamuli, Iganga, Mayuge and Wakiso.

Others are Mpigi, Luwero, Kiboga, Mubende, Kibale, Hoima, Masindi, Kamwenge and Bundibugyo.

Muwanga said Bundibugyo has 4,000 farmers with each farmer having at least one acre planted with cocoa.

He said with the increased production, they were trying to counter the impact of the high rate of poor handling practices, which exist in almost all cocoa growing districts.

Muwanga said with value addition, farmers will stand a chance of earning three times more than the market price of sh4,000 per kilo.

The proprietors of Olam, a cocoa buyer, also decry the poor handling of the crop.

“We have been engaged in cocoa exportation since 2002, but Uganda’s cocoa prices continue to suffer on the international market because of poor handling practices,” Iyer Suresh, Olam’s procurement manager, said recently.

Farmers are advised to harvest the cocoa when it is ripe. Ripe cocoa is red. They should dry it on tarpaulins then ferment it for seven days before it is dried for five days and then sold.

Suresh observed that those who harvest green cherries lose out because they end up selling them at as low as sh500 per kilo.

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