Sucafina is supporting farmers to produce quality coffee and get premium prices
Sucafina, the parent company of UGACOF Limited, is a premier supplier of East African coffee with operations in 32 countries including Uganda.
Sucafina prides itself on direct connections and relationships with producers. In a recent interview with the Global Coffee Report, Sucafina Sustainability Manager Justin Archer said that the deep ties to farmers play a big part in its work at origin.
“We’ve built quite a robust business around working directly with farmers, owning several washing stations for a number of years. We’ve become firmly implanted in and connected to those communities,” Archer says.
According to Archer, sustainability has become synonymous with Sucafina as they have so many of their own assets and resources in origin, which has made focus on sustainability and farmer livelihood almost a necessity. This, he said, has opened up new opportunities in different parts of the world.
UGACOF/Sucafina Uganda Operations
Sucafina, trading as UGACOF in Uganda is optimizing the country’s strong potential for specialty Arabica production by focusing on agricultural extension and improved processing infrastructure.
The bulk of their work in Uganda is focused in the west, near the Rwenzori Mountains.
“We are excited to be at the forefront of the drive for enhancing coffee production infrastructure, developing the industry and becoming reliable partners for farmers in the Rwenzori Mountain region,” Sucafina says, adding: “It is clear to us that the potential in this region might exceed our expectations and even the potential of the popular Mount Elgon region.”
With an ever-growing demand for high-quality Arabicas and a sustained interest from roasters and coffee drinkers in the East African origins, Sucafina is confident that, with diligence and effort, Western Ugandan coffees will take their place alongside the other great East African coffees.
Sucafina is focused on improving coffee quality through processing by impacting harvesting techniques, leading to the most immediate and noticeable improvement.
The Uganda team applies the same rigorous quality control standards as in Burundi and Rwanda. Through their extended network of cherry collection sites, the team meets with farmers every day during the harvest season and gives real-time feedback that can impact the quality of the next day’s harvest. At the collection sites, they insist on higher levels of care and reward meticulous picking.
“Though we’re still in the early years, we have seen a clear difference in quality from one year to another and even from the first week of the harvest to the last,” the company says, adding: “This process also provides additional income for farmers who are now getting paid specialty prices for their cherry. Farmers get at least a 10% premium than if they were producing Drugar quality. The average farmer in Uganda gets 65 to 75% of the cost of FOB, which is higher than most other East African origins, except Kenya.”
Sucafina Uganda is currently working with more than 8,000 farmers on farming practices, climate-smart agriculture and other best practices that help improve yield and quality while enabling a sustainable future. Sucafina is also investing in water treatment systems at all its washing stations and will fully recycle and reuse 100% of the wastewater at each station.
The company plans to work with farmers to improve their access to materials and knowledge of better farming practices. This means making fertilizer more accessible, encouraging farmers to plant shade canopies and more. They are also planning to build demonstration plots, input access sites across the region and train a new generation of skilled washing station staff.
In October 2021, Sucafina released its inaugural sustainability report, titled Shared Value for a Better Future. The report outlines Sucafina’s past and existing work towards sustainability, significant changes in 2020, and the trader’s 2030 sustainability strategy.
The strategy profiles three pillars under which its other goals and areas of focus fall: Caring for People, Investing in Farmers, and Protecting Our Planet. Archer says while no pillar is more important than the others, Investing in Farmers is the central pillar the strategy rests on.
Currently, Sucafina can identify 171,000 farmers in its global supply chain, at least half of which receive ongoing training and support. Under Investing in Farmers, the coffee company intends to double the size of its farmer network to 350,000 producers worldwide by 2025.
This will involve increasing the transparency and traceability that can sometimes be lost when dealing with intermediaries as the organisation puts in place long-term farmer financing solutions. Sucafina hopes to establish a dedicated farmer financing facility amounting to approximately US$30 million within a couple years’ time, according to Archer.
Sucafina is also exploring ways it can ensure price stability for coffee farmers, with the goal to source one million bags of green coffee per year under some form of price guarantee mechanism that rewards them for sustainable farming practices by 2025.
