Uganda’s coffee sector, facing stagnation, has proposed radical reforms that seek to turn around its poor performance.
Exports have declined by 16 per cent to 2.1 million 60-kg bags in 2006. This is blamed on weak research, regulation and motivation.
The proposed reforms include transferring the mandate of coffee research from the National Agricultural Research Organisation (NARO) to the Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA), and the introduction of stringent laws to enforce quality standards in the sector.
If implemented, the farmers expect the country to become more efficient in the production of coffee by using less planting area and increasing output.
Uganda exported 12,600 tonnes of coffee in 2006, from an estimated 224,700 hectares of land. In contrast, Ethiopia produced 250,000 tonnes of coffee from 400,000 hectares of land.
Ugandan farmers say the industry needs a specialised research agency, as opposed to the current situation where NARO, which caters for the entire agricultural sector, also caters for coffee. “You cannot put research activities for a major crop like coffee under NARO, which is busy with other crops. Coffee research should be put under UCDA, which has full authority over the coffee sector, including research, according to the UCDA Act of 1991,” said Gerald Sendawula, a former minister of finance and current chairman of Uganda Coffee Farmers Association.
According to Mr Sendawula, coffee requires intense research efforts throughout the year in order to flourish. NARO’s current arrangements have failed to assure the coffee farmers of quality results from its research. He says that the combination of various crop research activities by NARO leaves it with little technical attention and resources for coffee.
Coffee experts estimate that it takes about 20 years to develop a new variety. As a result, Uganda’s coffee production is constantly exposed to low yields caused by poor research that fails to detect deadly bacteria, like the one behind the coffee wilt disease, in time.
Africano Kangire, director of the Coffee Research Centre, said his organisation suffers from a budget deficit, which severely affects the scope of its work and the motivation of his staff. Out of a $342,857 budget allocation to the sector, the government has disbursed only $114,286, leaving a deficit of $228,571.
Consequently, the centre has for a long time limited its research to robusta coffee and only recently obtained some lowland Arabica coffee varieties from Papua New Guinea which are undergoing tests. Kangire said that although the yields are good, the quality of output of the arabica crop is not good when compared to local varieties.
The new varieties are capable of producing an estimated 3,250 kg per acre on average, but are prone to drought and can only be planted at an altitude of 1500-1700 metres above sea level.
Though the Coffee Research Centre has not yet recommended the varieties, some farmers are already cultivating them.
The centre is also understaffed since it has only six scientists. Mr Sendawula said the removal of coffee research activities from NARO’s mandate to UCDA will attract more funding because donors prefer supporting quasi-independent institutions than those directly under government ministries. The government has already shown its support for the proposal.
Coffee farmers are also unhappy about the lack of strong laws and bye-laws to monitor coffee handling. Due to liberalisation of the coffee industry in 1991, laws that guarded against poor handling of the crop were abolished, leaving a gap in the enforcement of quality standards, said Mr. Sendawula. It became hard to prosecute individuals caught harvesting raw coffee beans, let alone those spreading ripe beans to dry on bare ground.
Coffee grows in 25 districts in Uganda, but Mr Sendawula said only Masaka district, in central Uganda has bye-laws against poor coffee handling practices. The harvesting of raw coffee beans is supervised by a central government official.
Such a situation has put Ugandan coffee under persistent suspicions about its quality.
The East African
