By Our Reporter
Uganda’s coffee roadmap is steadily posting results with the Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA) in its latest report saying the farmers across the country have planted a total of 109,789,863 coffee seedlings in 102 coffee growing districts compared to 157,063,064 available coffee seedlings in the nurseries.
According to the report, coffee planting ended in November last year so that the last planted coffee seedlings can receive at least four rains and also increase survival rate. Uganda is Africa’s largest exporter of coffee, though Ethiopia-Africa’s top producer, consumes most of her coffee domestically.
UCDA in its report says farmer sensitisation and mobilisation, distribution ended in mid-November 2018 in all the coffee growing regions of the country.
The October 2017 coffee report indicates that a total of 381,636 60-kilo bags of coffee valued at US$43.74million were exported at an average price of US $1.91/kilo,3 cents higher than US$ 1.8 8/kilo in September this year.
UCDA quoted Farm-gate average prices for Robusta Kiboko at Shs. 2,300/= per kilo; FAQ Shs.5, 500/=per kilo, Arabica parchment Shs 5,850/=per kilo and Drugar Shs. 5,700/kilo.
Coffee exports for 12 months (November2016 to October2017) totalled 4.78million bags worth $564million comprising Robusta 3.75million bags worth $420million and Arabica
1.03million bags worth $144million.
9.88% of the total export volume was exported by 10 exporters, out of 33 who performed during the month of October compared to 81.93% in September 2017.
Compared to the same month last year, both Robusta and Arabica exports increased by 101.21% and 52.28 % respectively. In terms of value, Robusta increased by 109.34 % while Arabica increased by 44.29% compared to October 2016.
Uganda’s coffee exports to EU countries amounted to 245,228 bags higher than 172,584bags exported in the previous month. This represented a 64.26 % of total exports. EU was followed by Sudan with 41,145 bags (10.78 %) compared to 53,668 bags (15.70%) the previous month.
Algeria imported 19,770 (5.18 %) compared to 8,558 (2.50 %) compared to last month and USA 17,791bags (4.66 %) compared to 4,210 bags (1.23 %) in September. Coffee exports to Africa amounted to 83,383 bags, a market share of 21.85% compared to76,332 bags the previous month.
