According to Uganda’s vice president, Jessica Alupo, more than nine million Ugandans earn a living through coffee-related activities along the value chain.
According to Jessica Alupo, this is the reason for the crop’s strategic posture in the 2021-2026 National Resistance Movement (NRM) Manifesto.
On Tuesday, she addressed attendees at the start of the three-day second G-25 Africa Coffee Summit at Speke Resort Munyonyo in Uganda’s capital, Kampala.
President Yoweri Museveni officially opened the meeting, which is centered on reforming the African coffee business through value addition.
Coffee is an important cash crop for Uganda, according to VP Alupo, and is farmed on an estimated 583,000 hectares of land by around 1.8 million smallholder farmers, some of them are female-headed families.
She stated that Uganda earned $845 million (Sh3.1 trillion) from the export of 5.8 million 60-kilogram bags of coffee in the previous fiscal year (2022-2023).
This was an increase from 3.5 million 60-kilogram coffee bags seven years ago.
Alupo attributed the increase in coffee export volumes to the “Government’s deliberate efforts in coffee replanting” and expresses gratitude to coal farmers for “embracing government programs, particularly those of agriculture.”
“Your Excellencies, coffee is one of the commodities that stand to benefit from the African Continental Free Trade Area, which is based on leveraging African countries’ comparative and competitive advantages,” the VP stated.
“Coffee is one of our strategic enterprises under the Parish Development Model, and we expect it to contribute significantly to lifting our people out of poverty while following the four-acre model outlined in the NRM manifesto.”
