OPINION: Lets make Ugandan coffee as famous as the Gorillas

Last week I was in Kabale for a meeting with a conservation trust, and while I was there I took the opportunity to do some gorilla trekking. I had last seen the gorillas over twenty years ago so I thought I would renew their acquaintance.

The gorilla permit for non-Ugandans is $600, but for Ugandans it goes for only 250,000 shillings, yet very few Ugandans have actually availed of this opportunity. Most Ugandans don’t see the point of paying money and climbing up and down mountains to see an animal, which they can see on television. However, the gorillas are one of the main attractions for foreign tourists. Mountain gorillas can only be seen in the corner of the world where Congo, Uganda and Rwanda meet.

People cannot cross into Congo and the gorilla permit in Rwanda is more than twice the price of Uganda, so most tourists come to Uganda. Mountain Gorillas are a major selling point for Uganda.

Another commodity, which is extremely important for our economy is coffee, but one hardly sees Ugandan coffee on the shelves of supermarkets outside Uganda. I have done my own research and while one can find coffee from Kenya, Rwanda and Columbia it is rare to see Ugandan coffee.

This is because 80% of the coffee we produce is low grade Robusta which is used to make instant coffee and for blends. The other 20% is Arabica grown on the slopes of Mount Elgon or the Rwenzoris. The Arabica commands higher prices, but is not yet well known globally.

Practically all the coffee produced in Uganda is by smallholder farmers; there is little estate coffee, unlike Kenya. Our farmers pick the coffee, dry it on the ground and sell it to the coffee mill, which hulls it and sells it on to middlemen. These traders sell it to the big coffee factories, which clean it, grade it and export it. For smallholders coffee is a cash crop that doesn’t require much work. When one picks coffee one is supposed to pick only the ripe red berries, but many farmers strip the whole branch including berries that are still green.

When it is dried on the ground, it all turns dark brown so one cannot tell which was good coffee and which was unripe. Most small coffee farmers also don’t prune the bushes because they would lose a harvest that year and they don’t apply fertilizer, but the result is that the yield per tree is low. The net result is low yields and poor quality coffee, for which he gets a low price.

Over the past three years I have planted a fairly large area of Robusta coffee. Since I am a complete novice I got professional advice from UCDA and from a large commercial plantation – Kaweri, in Mubende. I was shown the correct agronomy, sold good quality clones and given the basic education as a new coffee farmer. The result was that this year I harvested quality coffee for which I was paid a premium.

UCDA can carry out ‘cup testing’ by which they grade the flavor, and quality of the coffee and my coffee tested well, but I then went further and roasted and packaged some coffee. This was essentially to test the market, since this is Robusta, which is often thought to be undrinkable.

I posted a picture of the coffee on Facebook and the response was overwhelming.

I think this is because people are tired of negative stuff about Uganda and want to see something positive. I then took the coffee to a coffee shop to make me a cappuccino – which was very good. I also tried a filter coffee, which was also good. I am a coffee drinker and have been drinking Ugandan Arabica coffee for years. It is very mild, sometimes too mild, but the Robusta has more caffeine and can give you a buzz. It is a bit rougher than the Arabica, but very flavorsome.

So I am on a mission to popularize Ugandan coffee drinking, particularly Robusta, or at least a mixture of Robusta and Arabica, which makes wonderful coffee.

On this journey I am learning a lot. The first is that smallholder farmers need to improve their agronomic and harvesting practices so that they get good quality. The second is that Ugandan Robusta can be good quality, especially when mixed with Arabica. Now I don’t really see why Kenyan coffee should be famous, but no one has ever heard of Ugandan coffee. Let’s make Ugandan coffee as famous as our mountain gorillas.