Sh1.4b to boost coffee

Nov 05, 2007

ABOUT sh1.4b is to be spent to increase coffee production from the 2006 level of about 2.3 million 60kg-bags to 4.5 million bags by 2015. The campaign is spearheaded by the Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA) together with Agribusiness Development Component (ABDC) of DANIDA, Café Africa and

By Ronald Kalyango

ABOUT sh1.4b is to be spent to increase coffee production from the 2006 level of about 2.3 million 60kg-bags to 4.5 million bags by 2015. The campaign is spearheaded by the Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA) together with Agribusiness Development Component (ABDC) of DANIDA, Café Africa and Coffee Research Centre scientists at Kituza in Mukono.

Other players are the National Agriculture Advisory Services, the National Union of Coffee and Agribusiness and Farm Enterprise and the Uganda National Agro-Inputs Dealers Association.

So far, Rukungiri, Rakai, Kanungu, Bushenyi, Kasese, Masaka, Mukono, Luweero, Mbale, Manafwa, Kapchorwa, Ntugamo, Mbarara, Ibanda, Nebbi, Arua, Kibaale, Sironko, Mpigi and Nakaseke districts have been selected.

The districts are to be supported with clean planting materials, inputs and credit, given tips on seedling multiplication, exposed to better farming practices and post-harvest handling.

“With yields currently running between 0.25 and 0.40kg of clean coffee per tree, the first target is to increase productivity to between 0.75 and 1kg,” Henry Ngabirano, the managing director of UCDA, said at a workshop at Hotel Africana in Kampala.

Ngabirano, however, said the targeted levels could be achieved when farmers go back to the basics of better husbandry like improved pruning, mulching and fertilising practices.

The manager of Micro Small and Medium Enterprises, Dr. David Kamukama, said ABDC had prioritised coffee and maize as the crops to support in the country’s bid to modernise agriculture.

Kamukama said they would establish a coffee mother garden in at least all the districts.

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