UCDA Leads Coffee Stakeholders to Western Uganda In A Coffee Quality Enhancement Campaign

The coffee season in South Western and Western Uganda has gathered steam and the traders’ activities have increased. At the meeting between UCDA Managing Director and the UCTF members, on 25th May 2011 at Sheraton Hotel in Kampala, several recommendations were made on how the coffee quality could me maintained as the season set in. One of the recommendations was the intensification of monitoring and regulation enforcement especially at processing by UCDA Field Technical and Extension staff.

This Monday 27th June 2011, a team of coffee professional lead by UCDA and comprising of UCTF, UCFA and NUCAFE is travelling to the South Western and Western part of Uganda visiting the districts of Masaka, Rakai, Bushenyi among others; to enforce coffee regulations at the processing level and also provide practical actions on what the coffee growing districts can do to improve/maintain quality standards.
The task team will hold meetings with local authorities on the need to develop and implement coffee bi-laws that puts a stop to harvesting and marketing of un ripe coffee (including buying of flowers or green coffee in the garden), middlemen buying coffee from farmers that is not yet fully dried, drying coffee in trading centers or at factories, drying coffee on bare ground and sun drying FAQ by processors and traders among other quality issues.
The team task will work with local authorities to enforce the registration of coffee buyers at sub-county level as well as stopping buyers from dealing in coffee trade without buyer’s store licenses and processors operating without valid processing license.

The quest for maintenance of good quality is a continuous one with all stakeholders involved. It’s our sincere hope that the taskforce will not only disrupt but will set the stage for sustained and wholesome quality enhancement fight from all stakeholders. As usual The Coffee Talk will give any updates from the activities of the taskforce. Let’s all support them in this noble endeavor.

UEPB Set to finalize the “Uganda Coffee Export Strategy”!

The process of updating the Coffee sector strategy in order to improve its export competitiveness on the global market for the next 5 years was launched on the 1st of February 2011. The process is being spearheaded by the Uganda Export Promotion Board (UEPB) with technical and financial assistance from the International Trade Centre (ITC).

As part of the process, the core team has held several consultative meetings to refine the outcomes of the first and second stakeholders workshop which did highlight issues affecting the coffee sector. A third stakeholder meeting is planned for next week to further the consultation process.

It is against this background that Coffee sector stakeholder will be meeting for three days for a consultative meeting at Hotel Africana from Tuesday 28th to finalise the plan.

For details please contact Mr. Simon Peter Okiring on mobile number 0773101072, 0414230250/230233 or Email pitasimon@yahoo.com for effective planning.