Coffee is the main source of income for many smallholder farmers
in Rwenzori region. The fertile hills of Rwenzori are conducive for Arabica
coffee growing. However, many smallholder farmers are not benefiting much from
the crop sales.
Consider this example, smallholder coffee farmers in Katebwa, Rwenzori
sometimes exchange a basin full of fresh red coffee berries for a kilogram of
goat’s meat. This arrangement is locally called “embene yo mwani” loosely
translated as a “goat meat exchanged for coffee berries”. Petty but scheming
businessmen dealing in local coffee trade would kill a goat and sell it to
meat-hungry smallholder coffee farmers. The trader usually asks for a basin
full of fresh coffee berries for a kilogram of goat's meat. A basin of fresh
coffee berries when dried gives 4kg of cleaned (hauled) coffee beans. A
kilogram of hauled coffee (husks removed) beans costs UGX6000. This implies
that impatient and unorganized smallholder coffee farmers lose UGX24000 (aboust
$7) in cash.
The
trade in embene yo'mwana can be categorized as
unfair. Farmers in Rwenzori mountains should be sensitized about financial
literacy so that they can develop a culture of saving and investment to benefit
more from their farming. To achieve this, farmers have to be organized, and
that's the main objective of this project.
Close
to a million people live on the slopes of Rwenzori mountains in the Ugandan
side. These people derive a livelihood from small scale farming with coffee
being the main cash crop for many.
Arabica
coffee contributes 15% of the coffee produced in Uganda. Most of the Arabica
coffee is grown in the hills of Kigezi (South-Western Uganda), Mbale (Eastern)
and Rwenzori (Western).
Smallholder
coffee farmers in Rwenzori are not benefiting much from the sale of their
coffee because they are largely unorganized. The middlemen (coffee brokers),
local area coffee petty traders buy the coffee from the farmers at very low
prices. Most smallholder farmers sell fresh coffee berries. This leaves them
with little benefit from their coffee.
In
addition, more farmers pre-sell their coffee berries while they are still green
in the field. They have no financial literacy. The farmer is in constant need
for cash yet he/she has less or no sources of income other than the coffee
field. Given that coffee if harvest mainly once in a year the farmer will only
get cash in the months when the crop is ripe. This makes the farmer prone to
temptation of borrowing from the middlemen to sustain his household cash needs.
The
cooperative societies that would be advising the farmer, bargaining for better
market prices and organizing the smallholder farmers to produce high quality
coffee, are non-existent in Rwenzori. Yet, having such and other farmer
organization mechanisms would help the small scale farmer get better coffee
prices and improve their livelihoods.
Justification for the project
Smallholder coffee farmers in Katebwa and
Karangura subcounties in Kabarole district, Rwenzori region, Western Uganda,
lose double by selling fresh coffee berries. First they are given lower
prices. Second they lose the coffee husks which would be used as manure in
their coffee fields e.g. if the coffee is hauled by the farmers group, the
husks can easily be given to farmers to use as manure. Secondly, the
unorganized smallholder farmers have no power to negotiate for better prices.
Solution:
Organize farmers in groups the aim is to
create a cooperative, a coffee depot
Objectives
include:
·
The objective of this
project is to organize farmers in
groups; train smallholder Arabica coffee farmers’ groups in good
agricultural practices and financial literacy.
·
The expected outcome
is that this will in the end enable the farmer in Rwenzori mountains make
informed financial decisions to improve their livelihood.
·
Empower farmers about
coffee marketing and
·
Encourage adherence to
quality control mechanism
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