Kampala, Nov. 6 - Uganda's state-run Coffee Development Authority has started a program aimed at boosting coffee tree yields as it seeks to restore output to 4.5 million 60-kilogram bags a year by 2015, UCDA said Monday.
UCDA is seeking to revive Uganda's coffee sector which has been hit over the year by coffee wilt disease, volatile coffee prices and changing weather patterns.
Since 1996, coffee output has been falling and reached an 11-year low of 2 million bags in the 2005-06 season.
UCDA hopes the plan will increase coffee yields to between 0.75-1 kilogram of coffee a tree from the current average of 0.25-0.4 kilogram.
UCDA has selected 20 districts in the country's leading coffee-producing regions and farmers there will be provided with high-yield coffee seedlings, farming inputs and credit facilities to enable them to boost yields.
"Coffee farmers in the selected districts will be given tips on seedling multiplication, exposed to better farming practices and post-harvest handling," UCDA said in a statement.
Up to 1.4 billion Uganda shillings ($830,000) is expected to be spent on the project, UCDA said, and the project is being co-funded by the Agribusiness Development Component, Cafe Africa and the Coffee Research Institute.
UCDA will work closely with the national coffee farmers body, the National Union of Coffee and Agribusiness and Farm Enterprises, the National Agriculture Advisory Services and the Uganda National Agro-Inputs Dealers Association to implement the program.
The government started in 2001 a nationwide coffee tree-replanting program to replace trees destroyed by coffee wilt and boosted by favorable weather last season, output rebounded and reached 2.7 million bags.
Uganda is Africa's leading robusta coffee producer, 2007-08 coffee output is projected to reach 2.8 million bags.