Coffee nursery operators are stuck with over 100m seedlings/Business Focus photo
Coffee Nursery operators from various parts of Uganda have protested Government failure to procure their seedlings on credit so that they don’t make huge losses.
Led by their Group Chairperson, Matia Tumwebaze, Coffee Nursery operators, told at National Theatre Gardens in Kampala that they are stuck with over 100 million seedlings worth Shs71 billion.
They say that government should allow them to distribute the overgrown seedlings to coffee farmers and be paid later.
It’s reported that Government appropriated Shs18 billion this financial for purchase of seedlings, but the money was not released by the ministry of finance due to financial challenges affecting the economy.
However, Coffee Nursery operators are calling government and the president to bail them out since they took loans to engage in coffee nursery business.
Recently, Rosemary Nyakikongoro, the Woman MP for Sheema District, presented a petition for coffee nursery operators to Parliament, noting that coffee seedlings have overgrown after UCDA was stopped from procuring and supplying to coffee farmers in an effort to raise 20 million bags of coffee per year by 2030.
Government says a total of 1.26 billion coffee seedlings had been supplied by private coffee nursery operators and planted in 114 districts out of the 146 districts of Uganda as at the end of 2019.
