Ugandans should exploit Italian coffee market

The recent visits to Uganda by Italian investors in the agriculture sector, particularly coffee, confirms what Ugandans already know, but are shy to expose to the world, that Uganda has the best coffee in the world. 

Why our production has declined and why we are still lagging at number six (Robusta coffee) is what investors want to reverse and make Uganda’s coffee as popular as it deserves.

The history of coffee goes back to the 14^th century. However, coffee was discovered after the Arab invasion of Africa. Slaves brought the beans to Arabia and accidentally threw them into fire and roasted, creating the coffee as we know it.

Coffee, even then, was a guarded commodity. The Europeans discovered the beverage in 1615 when a Venetian merchant brought it to the continent. The Europeans wanted to cultivate their own coffee and the Dutch who liked it filtered and smuggled the plant a year later.

As coffee grows best in warm climates, (Arabica growing best in high altitude, whereas Robusta grows in lower altitudes), the Europeans took the beans to their colonies. The Dutch established the first European-owned coffee estate on the island of Java in 1696.

Traders buying and selling pulped coffee in Kasese district

Along with coffee came coffee houses and these social institutions played a big role throughout history. Even the International insurer Lloyds of London started as a coffee shop in 1688. Coffee has now become an integral part of our lives and in Italy it is said that there are as many coffee shops as there are shoe shops.

Howard Schultz, (owner of Starbucks) traveled to Italy in 1983 and was impressed with the popularity of espresso bars in Milan. He opened a similar bar in Seattle and has never looked back. There are about 5,000 Starbucks shops in the world.

In many countries, exclusive coffee bars are rare and many coffee shops offer other drinks and food and also have a fresh juice bar. Lately, many bookshops have tied up with coffee shops and Nestle’ has joined in by opening its own Café Nestle’ stores in 18 countries.

Coffee is produced in more than 50 countries, with Brazil being the leading producer, followed by Colombia, Indonesia and Mexico. Many of these countries’ output comes from small farms, known as “out-growers” in Uganda.

One of the fastest growing suppliers of coffee at present is Vietnam, which more than doubled its output. Majority of coffee is grown in developing countries, where it is a huge foreign earner for them, sometimes accounting for as much as 80% of a country’s export earnings. And coffee has assisted in creating employment.

Diversification and promotion of new coffee markets in China and Russia have been successful and countries like Uganda have to ensure that more value addition occurs in our country rather than exporting raw beans for roasting and grinding.

As out of home consumption of coffee continues to drive the innovation of the coffee world, many coffee houses, (in Italy too), are now open to franchise agreements. The franchise outlets offer the aroma of coffee with other drinks and snacks.

The franchisor would support the franchisee to ensure state of the art coffee machines, quality control and high level of staff training and motivation. Inorder to maintain and increase market leadership, these companies actively research for innovative products.

Market access and marketing skills are important and Uganda’s exposure to the Italian markets would greatly enhance coffee trade. In July last year, the President of the International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD), Kanayo Nwanze, visited Uganda and amongst other projects visited the BIDCO Palm Oil project. This is the largest public-private partnership in IFAD’s portfolio in Uganda, where BIDCO and Wilmer have invested $120m in oil palm production. And with IFAD’s support, 1,500 smallholder farmers will provide about one third of the oil palm production for the refinery.

Smallholder farmers provide up to 80% of food in sub-Saharan Africa and many such farmers lack secure tenure and resource rights and rely on climate-sensitive natural resources for their livelihoods. Climate change has added a burden to these farmers as losses and damages from weather events keep increasing.

Policies and investment programmes are needed to help the smallholders respond to the new and difficult risk environment. IFAD’s aims to work with these communities and encourage a broad range of climatesmart approaches, including drought risk management mixed crop-livestock systems, water resources management, land regeneration, agro-forestry and improving postharvest storage.

Such farmers should be encouraged to grow the same quality crop and maintain its standards as international markets insist on maintaining uniform quantity and quality. The director general of Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), Jose Graziano da Silva, last month, visited Uganda and met vice-President Edward Ssekandi, Amelia Kyambadde, the minister of trade; Betty Bigombe, the state minister for water and other government officials. Civic society organisations have also
had consultations at FAO headquarters and made vital contributions to highlight their concerns.

Among other issues, the FAO chief emphasised the importance of understanding land rights and Uganda’s commitment to
promoting agricultural development. The Rome-based UN agency has agreed to strengthen collaboration with Uganda in
increasing productivity of small-scale rural subsistence farmers as well as building the bridge for small-scale farmers, who join commercial farming.

It also agreed to improve integrated watershed management, including small scale irrigation, improve harvesting and provide training in aquaculture, improve trade and market development and undertake assessment of storage facilities both at national and cooperative level.

Other areas FAO intends to support are building viable cooperatives and producer organisations by developing policies, legal framework, economic incentives, capacity building and forums for dialogue on policy. With support from the UN agencies and with renewed interest of Italian companies, who are willing to form joint ventures and, or enter into public private partnerships in the agro sector, with emphasis on coffee, it is crucial that Uganda focuses more on the agriculture sector as food security is an issue that concerns us.

Such partnerships would enhance training and utilise technical assistance, which could transform the lives of small-scale farmers and create employment.

The writer is the Charge de’ Affairs at the Ugandan Embassy in Rome