PICTORIAL: MUBS students feel the sweet aroma of Ugandan coffee at UCDA career exhibition

A team from Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA) on Thursday held a coffee career exhibition organised at MUBS under its Career & Skills Development Centre.

The team that included Mathias Cyiza, the Regional Coffee Extension Office at Uganda Coffee Development Authority, shared with students how to join the coffee value chain, training opportunities and what it takes to build a career in the sector.

“An acre of coffee can give you a monthly salary of shs800,000. Take on farming as a business,” he said.

Coffee is Uganda’s leading cash crop and a top foreign exchange earner. Uganda has an opportunity to become the world’s 3rd coffee producer after Brazil and Vietnam if it achieves its target of producing 20 million 60kg bags by 2025.  Currently, Uganda is world’s 8th largest coffee producer. Coffee supports 12 million Ugandans and the country’s leading cash crop is now produced in 126 districts out of 146.

Recent statistics indicate that the demand for coffee globally is increasing at a rate of about 2.0 percent per annum, implying that by the year 2030, global demand for coffee may have a deficit of about 30 million bags (60 kg bags each) if no production increase is made.

However, coffee farmers across the country need sensitization on Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs) and post-harvest handling. Extension workers are still few. 

UCDA has been holding many competitions aimed at promoting quality of coffee.

In April, Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA) held the finals of the 3rd Best of the Pearl 2023 Arabica Competition at the Authority’s Quality Laboratory in Lugogo, Kampala.

The competition, organized by UCDA in partnership with the Uganda Coffee Federation and supported by the European Union through the Coffee and Cocoa Value Chains Development (CoCoDev) Project, aimed to celebrate Uganda’s best coffees focusing on Uganda as an origin.

On the other hand, the Best of the Pearl Robusta competition is held in August after the main harvest season of Robusta with the aim of celebrating quality coffees from the Robusta growing regions of the West, South West, Central, East and North.

Asked about the benefits of participating in such competitions, Veronicah Najjemba Kawuki, the Value Addition and Promotions Manager at UCDA, said that the winning coffees get visibility because they are promoted as high-quality coffees in coffee conferences, expos and exhibitions in Uganda and around the world such as the Specialty Coffee Expo in the USA, World of Coffee Expo in Europe and the Specialty Coffee Association of Japan as well as at international business summits.

“We get many potential buyers interested in buying coffee from various origins. We link the potential buyers of our coffee to the producers,” Najjemba said in an interview at the UCDA Laboratory in Lugogo.