UCDA MD Dr. Emmanuel Iyamulemye hands over a pack of coffee to Buganda Kingdom Premier, Charles Peter Mayiga (Right) during the National Coffee Day held at Kamaama Farm in Masaka on Wednesday. Mayiga also received a Robusta coffee handbook and a copy of the National Coffee Act, 2021 from the UCDA boss.
The association of farmers and other players in the Coffee value chain in the greater Masaka sub region have cautioned government against the proposal of merging the Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA) with the Ministry of Agriculture, warning that the move will undermine the growth of the country’s coffee sector.
Through a joint statement presented at the 8th commemoration of the International Coffee Day held in Buwunga sub county, Masaka district on Wednesday, the coffee value chain players observed that the authority plays a very vital role in the coffee development chain, arguing that it is illogical to strip it of its current semi-autonomous status at this time.
In February last year, Cabinet approved recommendations to merge, mainstream, and rationalize government agencies, Commissions, Authorities, and Public enterprises with the objective of eliminating structural ambiguities, functional duplication, overlaps, wasteful expenditures to realize short and long-term savings of public resources.
But the players in the coffee sector led by Fred Mukasa Luzinda warn that the planned merger of UCDA will work against the country’s dream of realizing a substantial increase in coffee production to 20 million bags by 2030 from the current 8.4 million bags.
Besides regulating coffee quality for export promotion, UCDA is also responsible for promoting coffee value addition innovations and ensuring the farmers get quality inputs and extension services among other roles.
Luzinda says they are afraid that once merged, the authority will become inefficient which will open doors for unscrupulous persons who will disrupt the entire coffee value chain by compromising quality right from the farm to the cup.
“We don’t support this decision, it is going to impair and negatively impact the progress the coffee industry has made since the sector was liberalized in 1991. We ask the government to learn from the neighboring competitors; Kenya and Ethiopia who attempted this in total failure,” Luzinda noted.
Luzinda, who is the Director of Kamaama Mixed farm in Nkunke village, Masaka district- one of the biggest coffee estate in the sub region, asked government to galvanize the strides UCDA had made over the years.
On the other hand, the coffee actors also challenged the government to make strategic interventions towards addressing the prevailing challenges that frustrate the preferred expansion of the coffee sector. For instance, they prefer that government enlarges its coffee research capacities and extension services in the efforts to address the existential challenges of recurrent pests, poor quality inputs such as seedlings and pesticides, post harvest handling facilities among others that negatively affect the farmers’ production capacity.
According to Luzinda, while their annual average yield of coffee per tree is estimated at 1.7 kilograms of unprocessed coffee, many farmers are performing way below the expectations due to a cocktail of challenges which he says include high cost of inputs such as fertilizers and lack of knowledge on appropriate application.
Dr. Abed Bwanika, the Member of Parliament for Kimanya-Kabonera division in Masaka, demands that government instead further empowers UCDA to better its roles other than considering fusing it into the Ministry of Agriculture which is already congested and less effective in terms of service delivery.
“The authority has so far made a tremendous contribution to the sector, our focus should now be on how to make it more relevant for better results,” he indicated.
His demands were directed toward the Government Chief Whip, David Hampson Obua and Buganda Kingdom Prime Minister Charles Peter Mayiga, whom he asked to use their powers to engage the President and ask him to backtrack on the proposal.
He also moots for the inclusion of coffee beverages in the secondary school feeding program as a deliberate effort to widen its local consumption rate and promotion which will earn the farmers more revenue.
In response, David Hampson Obua, the Government Chip Whip indicated that he had taken note of the farmers’ concerns and demands, requesting that they are made formal to enable him to purposefully engage the relevant authorities for possible consideration.
Meanwhile, Dr. Emmanuel Iyamulemye, the Managing Director at UCDA indicated that the country has registered tremendous improvement in coffee production and export, calling upon all stakeholders to work towards expanding coffee growing across all regions of the country.
According to Dr. Iyamulemye, returns at UCDA indicate that last year, the country exported 6.3 million bags of coffee, the highest ever volume in the history of the country. This represents a 75% increment compared to the previous year.
In monetary terms, the coffee export fetched the country USD 826 million, representing 22 percent of the country’s foreign exchange earnings in the last financial year.
It indicates that the Authority is now making strides towards further improvement and maintaining coffee high-quality standards such that it remains competitive in the international market.
“We have established partnerships with international agencies that are already training our staff to ensure the quality of our coffee. We have now embarked on the journey to popularize coffee as a major income earner in all regions of the country and indeed we are registering progress,” he said.
In his address, the Buganda Premier Charles Peter Mayiga called upon the communities not to be dissuaded from growing coffee by the current challenges, saying that there are clear indicators that the sector will continue to improve.
He was accordingly handed coffee processors and exporters licenses from UCDA, granting permission to the Buganda Kingdom’s ‘Mwanyi Terimba Limited’ to begin its export business.
