By Edrisa Ssentongo
The Civil society organisations with in the agricultural, trade land, governance, women empowerment and public accountability space led by Food Rights Alliance have raised a red flag over Uganda’s coffee sector and its capacity and readiness to adhere to coffee sector reforms and conform to European Union deforestation regulation with only 239 days before the deadline to be effected.
In a joint statement released by the these civil society organisations which indicated that there has been inadequate public and stakeholder engagement, limited clarity on institutional reforms and transitions on farmer level awareness about the European Union deforestation Regulation yet Uganda has only 239 days to meet the requirements or risk our coffee being banned from the European Market in case it has been grown on deforestated land .
“The government silence risks deepening existing inequalities, marginalising small holder voices and exposing vulnerable actors to shocks that could undermine their livelihoods and Uganda’s coffee competitiveness,” said the CSOs led by Food Rights alliance
The concerns raised by the civil society organisations come after government dissolved Uganda coffee developing authority (UCDA) and its functions into the Ministry of Agriculture, UCDA was dissolved amidst opposition from different stakeholders as Buganda Kingdom, members of Parliament from the alternative government and the general public. UCDA had helped increase production of coffee from 2.7 million bags in 2009/2010 to 7.7 million bags in 2019/2020.
The CSOs called on government through Ministry of Trade ,industry and cooperatives to sit down and negotiating table and discuss market diversification strategies beyond the European Union to reduce dependency while supporting compliance for existing European markets to promote women led coffee enterprises and cooperative by facilitating access to trade finance, market intelligence and export facilitation programmes and enhance value addition initiatives locally and ensure women entrepreneurs have access to coffee processing, branding and Market support.
They called on Ministry of finance to ensure timely disbursement of funds allocated for the national traceability system and farmer registration proccess, introduce targeted financial instruments for example coffee bonds, concessional loans that women and small holder farmers and women can access.
The CSOs also called on the ministry of Agriculture to ensure smooth and inclusive transition of UCDA functions by maintaining continuity in European Union deforestation Regulation Coordination roles previously handled by UCDA.
They also requested women coffee farmers to organise and Mobilise themselves into strong cooperatives and producer organisations to enhance collective bargaining power and service delivery to adopt and promote climate smart agricultural practices and technologies that improve resilience to climate change, participate actively in dialogues, training and advocacy activities to remain informed and shape decisions that affect livelihoods and document and share experiences and challenges to inform Policy reforms to ensure gender responsive support systems.
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