 Agriculture rebirdth |
Rapid
growth and liberalization of Uganda's economy has seen the emergence of a number of
companies including the Uganda Coffee
Development Authority(UCDA) to supervise the coffee industry. Today through its
research, production, marketing and advice on pricing, the UCDA has been able to
rejuvenate the coffee industry, giving the country the much needed foreign exchange.
With improved nurseries to provide enough seedlings to farmers and
projects replacement of aging coffee plants within the next 20 years the industry is set
to boom. "On the farm, the farmer is now selling all his coffee for cash compared to
the past where he would wait for a long time before being paid cash because of Coffee
Marketing Board’s monopoly " Mr. Tress Bucyanayandi, managing director of UCDA
observed.
"But because of competition by many exporters with their agents in
the country-side farmers are paid cash promptly" he said. "By 1991, Uganda's
average production was approximately 2 million 60kg bags but the recorded figure of last
year was 4.24 million bags and previous year was 4.14 bags" according to Mr
Bucyanayandi.
The main points UCDA is emphasising on are regulatory and development.
No coffee goes out of Uganda without attaining a certificate of quality. "Although we
have liberalised and the coffee belongs to the exporters, the final certificate which
allows coffee to be exported is given by UCDA".
"It is done so, in order to make sure that commercial
considerations by these private people do not compromise the quality of Uganda coffee.
Uganda Coffee Robusta is the best in the World and all robusta coffee from other countries
in the world are composed and judged against Uganda's coffee", the managing director
noted.
Undoubtedly, UCDA has a success story to showcase. In 1995/96, Uganda
exported 1,200 bags and in 1996/97 it rose to 4,800 bags. In Canada it went up from 600 to
1,200 bags. For robusta, last season, 16,000 bags were exported to the U.S.
Attempts are also being made to add value to the coffee. The first is
to sell washed arabica and robusta to the specialty market, the second is to popularize
local consumption of roasted and ground coffee and the third is to attract an investor to
go intosoluble coffee production.
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The preoccupation of UCDA is to stay in the coffee
business and to do that the country intends to
increase output to about 6 million bags the next
two years.
Cotton also remains one of the back-bones of
the Ugandan economy. Since liberalization of the
cotton sub-sector and the establishment of the
Cotton Development Organization(CDO)
there has been an up turn in activity in the sector.
"The year prior to liberalization, 15,000
bales of cotton were produced; in the first year
of liberalization it went up to 33,000 bales and
following year 60,000 bales. With the culture
of liberalized marketing and processing and farmers
becoming better informed, the country produced
110,000 bales this season", Mrs Jolly Sabune,
Managing Director of CDO said. Mr. Jolly Sabune,
believes that the El Nino phenomenon would claim
50% of the expected drop, but noted that the farmers
enthusiasm is there, the marketing demand is there
and the internal demand is developing.
Unlike coffee, quality for Uganda's cotton for
the last 3 years has been the biggest fight with
the industry participants. last year nearly 70%
per cent of Uganda's cotton was marketed in the
first three grades, Uganda cotton is a premium
cotton on the international market", Mrs.
Subane noted.
"This shows that if the right policies are
put in place and marketing is good, Uganda's 50%
subsistence farming community can depend on cotton
as a cash crop and this would go a long way in
poverty alleviation", Mrs. Sabune observed.
Funding for the cotton sub-sector is by the World Bankjointly
with IFA and Uganda Government and in processing
and technology by Lummus, and Eagle Continental
both US based companion participate in the manufacturing
of high speed grains. for the industry.
There is however a little cause for worry. The
participation of big investors in the industry.
Mrs. Subane says has become a source of worry
but a lot of encouragement is being offered big
companies to take advantage of the liberalization
of the sector to enter into partnership with the
small scale farmers to engage in large scale production.
"Whoever wants to grow cotton should come
in because we have enough land. We want to add
value to our lint products and also increase on
our production because that is the way forward
for industrialization", Mrs. Sabune said.
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