Farmer’s Diary – New Minister Has Tough Task to Fix Coffee Sector

Michael J. Ssali

29 June 2011

The appointment of Tress Bucanayandi as Minister of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries (Maif) was welcomed by coffee farmers attending the general meeting of the National Union of Coffee Agribusiness and Farm Enterprises (Nucafe) at Jobiah Hotel in Mukono on June 18.

Mr Bucanayandi was for many years the managing director of Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA). Coffee farmers are particularly pleased because the ministry is now headed by someone they know to fully understand difficulties of the coffee farmer and who has for a long time been devoted to the development of the coffee sector. His ascension to the top office in Maif has raised farmers’ hopes so high that one of his major challenges is to live up to their expectations.

The meeting re-elected Gerald Ssendaula, former minister of finance, as chairperson of Nucafe and Cyprian Bangirana, from Bushenyi, also retained his position of vice-chairperson. The entire Nucafe board actually remained the same except for just four positions: treasurer, which went to Ambrose Gidudu, director of Eastern Arabica Region, filled by Abraham Alex Kiprotich, director of Western Region, taken by Eva Mbambu Bwambale, and director, Jinja Region, which went to Edith Edwenge.

Mr Bucanayandi’s new appointment fortunately coincided with a sizable rise in coffee prices, reportedly due to increased demand for the beverage internationally, and government’s decision, at last, to fund rapid multiplication of coffee wilt disease (CWD) resistant Robusta coffee varieties. Coffee is now a crop to watch more closely than ever before.

Mr Ssendaula, who is at present a farmer in Rakai District, announced that government, with assistance of some donors, was finally in a position to provide the CWD resistant seedlings to the farmers in the not so distant future. The coffee research station at Kituuza in Mukono district will work jointly with the National Agricultural Laboratory Research Institute in Kawanda and AGT laboratories in Buloba to produce the seedlings. The process, known as tissue culture, is expected to produce millions of seedlings within about 18 months for coffee farmers to plant, perhaps as early as 2013.

According to some estimates, CWD has destroyed over 15million Robusta coffee trees in Uganda, which has greatly reduced coffee exports. Mr Ssendaula is disappointed that as a country, we are not yet paying enough attention to the coffee crop, which is not only our major foreign exchange earner but also keeps millions employed. “If we replaced all the dead coffee trees and tripled the total number thereafter, we could earn a lot of foreign exchange even in the event of coffee prices falling,” he later told this columnist on phone.

Ssendaula is particularly perturbed that we have been too slow in coming up with a coffee policy. During the Uganda National Coffee Farmers Convention at Namboole Stadium in 2008, which was graced with the presence of then Prime Minister, Prof. Apollo Nsibambi, it was agreed that a coffee policy be drafted and made ready within a period of three or four months.

However, what we have today is a mere draft policy, which farmers say has failed to address their needs among a whole range of other issues. “Apart from empowering the coffee farmer and the farmers’ organisations, the policy must address the issue of separation of the development and regulatory roles of UCDA,” Mr Ssendaula said.

This is one of the many problems that the coffee farmers expect Mr Bucanayandi to address as soon as he settles in his new job. Our competitors like Brazil have had a coffee policy for perhaps the last 60 years.

“A valuable crop like coffee must have a law, which governs its production and marketing,” Ssendaula insists. “Because we don’t have a policy, crooks harvest green coffee berries and dry them on the bare ground, which is not only unhygienic but also greatly erodes the quality of our coffee and lowers prices. We cannot prosecute such people although sometimes we have engaged police to arrest them. They end up being released because there is no law, which we can use in the courts to have them punished.” He says the law must also safeguard farmers from exploitation by traders.

Part of the reason we have problems competing effectively with other world coffee producers is that often we fail to meet the required quality standards. Yet a law governing coffee production right from the nursery bed managers to the farmers and the traders, would greatly help to fix the problem.

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