Coffee farmers told to embrace value addition

AGRICULTURE |

The Government has implored Ugandans dealing in coffee production to embrace value addition, to attract the international market.

According to Dr. Emmanuel Iyamulemye, the Managing Director Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA) with good quality and value addition, Uganda's market for coffee will improve.

"We have to look at value addition when we do this, we shall have the market for our coffee," Iyamulemye said on Thursday.

Speaking during a webinar to commemorate the international coffee day, Iyamulemye said to improve coffee exports, the government is putting focus on quality and value addition to Uganda's coffee.

Recently, Iyamulemya said Uganda had during the COVID-19 period registered an increase in monthly coffee exports, surpassing the 500,000 bags mark.

The increase, which is the highest volume since the liberalization of the country's coffee industry in 1991, was registered between the months of June and July this year. 

Thursday, Uganda joined the rest of the world, to commemorate the international coffee day, under the theme Uganda Coffee: Resilient through COVID-19 and the new normal.  

During the webinar meeting, which was organized to celebrate the day, coffee experts said the consumption for coffee had dwindled due to COVID-19.

"Some of the large customs have not been able to sell coffee to cafes because they are closed following the outbreak of COVID-19," Philip Schluter, a coffee expert from the UK said.

He said because of COVID-19, the demand for coffee had reduced which inevitably affected the steady supply of coffee across the world.

Robert Waggawa Nsibirwa, the minister of finance and investment Buganda Kingdom, said Uganda's coffee especially from the central region is of good quality which gives Uganda a better chance to market its coffee.

He noted that the new normal is a learning experience for Uganda to find ways of marketing its produce to avoid losses by farmers.

"We need to plan for any eventualities for businesses and say suppose this happens, how we can counter it," Nsibirwa noted.

According to UCDA, COVID-19 had led to an increase in supply costs translating into price fluctuations whereby coffee prices have been highly volatile, mainly as a result of supply chain disruptions.

The pandemic had specifically affected labour supply either directly due to illness or indirectly as the movement of farm labourers and migrant workers is limited by social distancing measures, lockdowns and travel restrictions. 

"For the country to continue in the buoyant mood, our farmers have to do crop diversification, prices have not been very favourable," Iyamulemya said.