What Next For the Coffee Sector?

Experts say that the market signals will ultimately tell the fate of the Ugandan Coffee Sector following the rationalisation of the Ugandan Coffee Development Authority.

These insist that the value addition dream in the coffee sector may be harder to succeed since the more established Coffee brands are hard to outcompete with no economies of scale.

Since the Parliament of Uganda Passed the National Coffee Amendment Bill 2024 into law , immediately pushing the Uganda Coffee Development Authority back to the Mother Ministry of Agriculture the fate of more than 12 million People engaged in the Coffee value chain has been unclear.

Uganda is currently out of the International Coffee Organisation and the good price Ugandan coffee got on the international market has largely been a function of schadenfreude as Brazil and Vietnam have had poor seasons in the past two years casting questions on what the prices of the Ugandan Coffee will be when other international coffee growing countries recover.

" I think the debate greatly lacked a critical analysis of the performance of UCDA , that is why facts are not on the table."

Walugembe added that within two years the country will come to a realisation of the decision it made in merging UCDA with MAAIF.

" The market will solve the question of whether we made a right decision or not. If the roles of regulatory oversight, quality compliance among others are not performed the prices will fall and hurt Farmers and that shall be an indicator that we took a wrong decision and then we change."

Also , with the EUDR implementation lead , UCDA going back to the Ministry, how likely is it that by Dec 31st 2024 the new Unit in the Ministry will have registered all the Coffee Farmers in compliance with the EUDR?

One of the key validations for rationalisation is that Uganda is being exploited with less value fetched from.exportation of green beans. So will Uganda beat Starbucks and Nescafe and the other big players in the Value addition field on the international scene?

However, Dr. Chris Baryomunsi the Government Spokesperson in his appearance on the frontline show had said that there would not be any challenges in the new arrangement since the Authority will be a unit in the Ministry.

The Ministry of Agriculture has not yet published or provided a detailed plan on how it is going to handle the structural changes and who will perform those functions previously performed by UCDA

Our attempts to find comment on the plan and way to go from the MAAIF were futile by the publishing time.