By Taddewo Senyonyi
Over the last 18 years, between 1994 and 2012 coffee has fetched Uganda a total of over $5 billion. Up until today, coffee exports, make up the bulk of Uganda exports- between 10-15%, but despite all this, there has been no regulatory framework to guide the production and marketing of a crop on which Ugandan households survive until recently when cabinet approved the national coffee policy.
For Mr. Gerald Ssendaula, a coffee farmer and Chairman National Union of Coffee Agribusiness and Farm Enterprises (NUCAFE), this perhaps explains why there has been no significant change in the revenues earned by the country from coffee earnings.
He told the 4th Uganda coffee farmers’ convention organised by NUCAFE, at the Uganda Manufacturers Association Multi Purpose Hall, Lugogo, on September 11, 2013 that the lack of a national coffee policy was hurting the coffee sub-sector and that it was long overdue to be debated and passed into law.
“If oil came yesterday and it has a law governing it, why not coffee that has been a traditional cash crop for years?