Government has said only individuals engaged in value addition processes, as opposed to the actual coffee farmers will be licensed.
A few weeks ago, Agriculture Minister Vincent B. Sempijja presented the National Coffee Bill 2018 before Parliament to repeal and replace the Uganda Coffee Development Authority Cap 325.
The Bill covers the general outline of production and trading, administrative and financial measures. It also has a clause of licensing coffee growers, an issue which several coffee farmers opposed and said it was not necessary.
At one point President Museveni told the Katikiro of Buganda Charles Peter Mayiga to stop telling the public lies.
However, while addressing journalists on Tuesday, the deputy head of the Uganda Media Center Shaban Bantariza said not everyone engaged in coffee growing will required to get a licence.
“There was some controversy on why the government decided to bring up a Bill to register farmers growing coffee. It was misunderstood by some people and it is not true. Licensing will start at the level of value addition,” he said.
Bantariza explained that licensing of coffee farmers in value addition is intended to ensure that they export good quality coffee that will compete with other products from other competitive countries such as Brazil and Vietnam.
“We are dealing with global market so many things such as product quality must be right since European, American and International markets have agreed not to take agricultural products containing fewer Aflatoxins,” he added.
According to Bantariza, registering and licensing of coffee farmers will enhance mobilisation on what must be done to see that farmers have good quality coffee harvested.
