Kampala, Uganda, Feb. 15 - Uganda has to stop exporting coffee beans to improve earnings for its coffee farmers and get a fair share of returns from its chief export crop, the Ugandan president told the fifth annual African Fine Coffee conference in Kampala, Friday.
Yoweri Museveni said that the country can't continue to export raw coffee because it's not getting a fair return.
Museveni said Ugandan coffee farmers earn around $2 a kilogram for coffee beans. However, the value of the same coffee increases to between $10/kg and $70/kg after being roasted and this money goes to the roasters.
The president noted that out of $100 billion worth of coffee drank in the whole world, coffee producing countries get only $12 billion. He added that this is unfair and said this explains the abject poverty afflicting African coffee farmers.
He also said that Ugandans should join the club of coffee drinkers to boost the local market and stop relying on foreign markets. Uganda's domestic coffee consumption is estimated at around 1% of the total crop, while neighboring countries like Kenya and Tanzania consume only 2%.
Museveni further said that the government will support local coffee roasters to improve exports of value added coffee. Last year, Good Africa Coffee, a local Ugandan coffee roasting company announced that its coffee is now being sold in U.K. supermarkets.
Museveni said the greatest obstacle to exporting value added coffee is opposition from the European Union and U.S. markets as well as lack of capital to expand local processing facilities.
Uganda has the capacity to increase coffee production from the current 151,000 metric tons a season by around four times if it replaces the old low yielding coffee trees with high yielding trees. However, Museveni noted that there is no need given the prevailing trade imbalance.
Uganda has up to around 220,000 hectares of land covered with coffee plantations but the yields per hectares are low mainly due to aging trees and poor crop husbandry methods.
The president noted that Ugandan coffee farmers have rehabilitated their farmlands following the recovery of global prices in recent years. Farmers had abandoned the crop due to volatile prices.
Uganda is Africa's second leading coffee producer and exporter after Ethiopia. The country exports nearly all its coffee in bean form mainly to the U.S., E.U. and Asian markets.