Coffee in Uganda

By Caitlin Fitzsimmons

Many hundreds of years ago the fearsome warriors of Uganda chewed on the coffee bean before going into battle. Coffee grew wild in the thick rainforest that blanketed the lands north of Lake Victoria and chewing the bean was believed to confer strength and invincibility. Today coffee is no less important for Uganda and its people.

This is farming country, striking for its lush, green landscape – a far cry from the dust and famine often associated with East Africa. Britain’s wartime prime minister Winston Churchill, inspired by the beauty of the countryside, called Uganda the “pearl of Africa”. Yet the country remains a little off the tourist track, overshadowed by its own history of civil war and the dramatic wildlife of neighbouring Kenya.

Small numbers of travellers visit every year to see the gorillas living in forest reserves in the west of the country near Congo – almost the only place in the world where the great apes survive in the wild. And for those in search of an adrenaline rush, there’s rafting on the whitewater rapids at the source of the Nile, east of Kampala. But to see the real Uganda, you have to visit the villages, where clusters of mud huts with thatched rooves nestle amid pockets of forest and small farms.

Everywhere you go, scores of children of all ages appear from the side of the road, crying “mzungu mzungu” – the local word for “white people” – with great excitement. This is the heart of Uganda’s coffee industry. Uganda is one of the top ten coffee producers in the world and the second biggest in Africa, yet this comes almost exclusively from small family holdings, from the shores of Lake Victoria to the foothills of the snow-capped Mountains of the Moon.

Just an acre or two of land will produce enough food for the family – frequently as many as eleven people – with staples such as maize, beans, cassava and bananas on the menu. No matter how small the farm, every farmer will have at least a couple of prized coffee trees. Coffee is one of the few cash crops that smallholders can grow and the income from selling ripe coffee cherries has to stretch a long way. Farmers sell coffee to pay for school fees, medical expenses, repairs to the house and domestic items such as cooking oil.

“Everything good you see in the villages is because of coffee,” says Lawrence Busuulwa, a senior field officer for coffee exporter Ibero. Busuulwa should know. He grew up in a big family on a small farm in eastern Uganda and coffee has played an important role in his life. “All of us went to school because of coffee,” he says. “My father would sell a bit and put it behind the bed. There were 13 of us and I went to university, two sisters went to teaching college, one boy did a higher diploma in engineering.”

In eastern Uganda, the mountainous part near Kenya, farmers grow Arabica coffee, highly prized for its refined flavour and use as a gourmet coffee. The steep slopes and cooler weather make perfect coffee growing country, while the dramatic rock faces and beautiful Sipi Falls attract travellers and hikers. In western and central Uganda, the land is gentler and the crop is largely Robusta. Coffee afficionados often scorn Robusta but the Uganda variety is something special.
Robusta is indigenous to Uganda so it is perfectly suited to the climate and soil of the land, resulting in a much deeper and richer flavour.

Alexis Rodriguez, green coffee manager at Nespresso, is excited by the possibility of introducing Ugandan Robusta to Special Club members. “The Robusta we’ve found in Uganda is quite interesting,” Rodriguez says. “This is linked to the environmental conditions, which is delivering a coffee different to the other countries.” The fact that Robusta is native is better for the environment because when grown in Uganda the crop generally does not require irrigation or pesticides. The rainfall patterns result in an almost continuous year-round crop and it is possible for there to be blossoms and ripe cherries on a single tree at the same time, meaning a steady income for farmers and farm workers.

It is not surprising that Nespresso is considering Ugandan Robusta for its AAA programme, which combines the AA quality standard with an additional requirement for sustainability. Nespresso is committed to ensuring that at least half its coffee meets stringent sustainability guidelines by 2010, and is hoping to make a five-year commitment to buy some of this from Uganda.

Much of this is likely to come from Kaweri Coffee Plantation, a large parcel of land in the Mubende district north west from Kampala, where there are 1834 hectares of coffee under cultivation. Frank Bibby, managing director of the plantation (now retired), explains that the land was bought by German coffee company Neumann Gruppe in 2001 with the long term goal to produce 5000 tonnes of coffee in a sustainable way. “There’s more and more demand from roasters for coffee that is respectful of the workers, the community, the environment and it’s very difficult to guarantee that coffee that is bought at auction or is bought just from middle men comes from producers that abide by the guidelines,” Bibby says. “The one way of guaranteeing it is to have control of the production.”

Deforestation is a big problem in Uganda but at Kaweri, 20 per cent of the land has been preserved as corridors of indigenous forest and become a haven for colonies of black-and-white Colobus monkeys and a vast array of birdlife. There is minimal use of chemicals on the farm, most of the work is done manually to preserve the soil and the pulp and water from the coffee processing plants are recycled as natural fertiliser. The farm provides work for about 1000 people, with pay and conditions in the top bracket for rural labouring work in Uganda, and also hosts a medical clinic staffed by a qualified nurse. At a total of 2512 hectares Kaweri Plantation is by far the biggest coffee farm in Uganda and is thought to be the biggest Robusta plantation within a single boundary in the whole of Africa.

While its coffee is undoubtedly important to Nespresso’s plans to buy sustainable coffee from Uganda, the roaster is determined to include small farmers as well. Most Ugandan coffee is grown by subsistence farmers on half an acre to two acres of land and for Nespresso it would defeat the purpose of buying sustainable coffee if these farmers were locked out of the deal. “For us is critical that we have a representative sample of the growers in the region,” says Rodriguez. “We cannot do sustainability only on one big farm, the idea is to cover more and more the growers of the region.”

Nespresso has a big challenge ahead. Its sustainability guidelines were developed for Arabica growers in Latin America and Nespresso must not only adapt them to Robusta and Uganda but also find a way of ensuring that tens of thousands of small farmers abide by the rules and produce quality coffee in the process. Fortunately there are local partners already working on this goal.

Near Mityana, an hour or two from the plantation, the Kaweri Coffee Farmers Alliance is organising farmers to improve quality and sell their coffee collectively. The Alliance, which shares some principles with a co-operative but has a different legal structure, is funded by international donors including the European Union, which has committed €1.8 million over three years. Jason Green, project coordinator, says many farmers gave up on coffee after prices collapsed in the 1990s but the right incentives could rejuvenate coffee farming in the region. “Farmers know what to do. They’re traditional coffee farmers, they’ve been doing it for twenty years and their fathers did it before them, so they know how to produce quality coffee,” Green says. “We encourage them to do what they already know how to do and not only give the incentives but provide the structure so that quality can be rewarded.”

Traditionally farmers have sold their coffee to a middleman who pays the same price regardless of quality and farmers are often tempted to harvest the coffee before its ripe if they need cash quickly. The Alliance has about 6000 members so far with a long term aim of 20,000 and farmers have already noticed an improvement in income. Ignatius Mugerwa, the lead farmer for the Alliance in Kassanda, says the farmers really appreciate the training the group provides, not only on agricultural practices but also on market trends. As lead farmer, Mugerwa is trained by the Alliance and his role is to pass on his skills and knowledge to about 30 other farmers in the area. “I visit them and also they visit me and I show them what to do,” he says through a translator. “They like it. Training interests them to know what they should do properly.” Mugerwa, who is married with 13 children aged seven to 25, supports his family from three acres of land where he runs a herd of cattle and grows bananas, ascato, beans and maize, as well as tending his coffee trees.

Green says it would be a great boost for the farmers if Nespresso became involved on a long-term basis. “Improvements to farming and improvements sustainability take a long time,” he says. “Nespresso coming in and showing that the market is available to them and requesting quality improvements is a very good signal. The pricing is also important – the premium that Nespresso offers would be well appreciated and well used.”

Meanwhile, coffee exporter Ibero is working with aid organisations to achieve similar goals for 12,000 farmers in Masaka, Luwero and Kamuli in central Uganda. On the quality side, this means things like encouraging farmers to use pruning saws rather than machetes to trim the trees, to pick the coffee only when ripe and to dry coffee off the ground, such as on a tarpaulin. Another challenge is environmental preservation – trying to convince farmers to leave trees on their property rather than cut them down for firewood and to use natural fertiliser and mulch under the trees.

Possibly the biggest challenge is uplifting social standards in the villages. Stefan Cognigni, special projects manager for Ibero Uganda, says the biggest problem is not nutrition but education and access to clean drinking water and medical facilities. Many farmers are organic by default and Uganda is believed to have the lowest usage of agrichemicals in all of Africa. Yet when farmers do use chemicals such as fertilisers and herbicide they often keep them in the house, perhaps under the bed in reach of children, and reuse the containers for food and water. “I’ve often seen cooking oil in empty chemical containers, I’ve seen salt in empty chemical containers, I’ve seen once a girl taking it to school for a water bottle – a bottle of Roundup and there was water in there,” Cognigni says.

In response Ibero has built central storage buildings for chemicals and also run an empty chemical bottle collection where farmers can take their empty containers for safe disposal. Despite all the improvements, there is still a long way to go to reach the exacting standards of the AAA programme but Cognigni is excited by the possibility of working with Nespresso. “We would have to train the farmers on Nespresso’s requirements but these are all criteria and requirements that will greatly benefit farmers,” he says. “There is definitely an improvement from a sustainability point of view and from the economic viewpoint there are higher earnings.”

Since Robusta coffee has its roots in this part of the world, it would be fitting to see this ancient coffee kingdom revitalised. Once again farmers seem to be taking pride in producing a quality bean and excited by the possibility of working with a long-term partner like Nespresso. If Nespresso commits to the country, it will give Special Club members the opportunity to enjoy the unique taste of a gourmet Robusta, grown in perfect conditions in harmony with the culture and natural environment. Yet it won’t just be Nespresso customers who benefit – it will also provide real gains for some of Africa’s poorest farmers, reducing poverty and raising the standard of living for thousands of farmers and their families.

Special club: Ensibuko

The road from Mbale hugs the mountain, ascending rapidly through the brilliant green of banana palms into a land of sheer cliffs and native forests dotted with farmsteads. The translucent waters of the Sipi River spill down the mountain cascading through three dramatic waterfalls and nourishing the land.

It is here on the slopes of Mount Elgon, an ancient volcano on the border with Kenya believed to have once been the tallest mountain in Africa, that Bugisu coffee has its home. Named for the tribe that farms this mountain, Bugisu is one of the finest washed Arabica specialty coffees in the world and is the main ingredient in Ensibuko, this season’s Special Club offering.

Uganda is a place of beginnings – filled with lakes and wild forests, home to the source of the Nile and the birthplace of Robusta – and Ensibuko means ‘origin’ in the native language.
Bugisu washed Arabica accounts for nearly 90 per cent of the coffee, while a hint of high quality Ugandan Robusta adds complexity to the blend. The Arabica bean was introduced to the Mount Elgon region only in the early 20th century but by the 1960s Bugisu had already made a name for itself among coffee connoisseurs.

The climate is moderated by altitude and rainfall from both Lake Victoria and the Indian Ocean and the soil is loose and volcanic, ideal for producing the distinctive delicate flavour and fragrance of washed Arabica. Covering 3,670 farms, mostly small holdings from half an acre to two acres in size, the Bugisu area produces up to 9,000 tons of coffee per year.

The coffee is grown amongst banana, cassava and other crops and many families keep livestock – cows, goats, chickens and also rabbits – for both food and natural fertiliser. The mixed farming tradition protects the coffee crop from disease and insects and keeps the soil healthy, creating self-sustaining conditions with little need for chemicals. At harvest time, the whole family helps to pick the red cherries and dries them in the sun before transporting them for sale on donkeys, bicycles or baskets on the head.

The Bugisu coffee is graded and the AA quality is distinctive for its bright green appearance and uniformity of size. It produces a well-balanced, moderately bodied cup with a delicate background of fruitiness. To make Ensibuko, the Bugisu is mixed with a small amount of fine semi-washed Robusta to addcup strength and tones of puffed rise without increasing bitterness. The semi-washed process adds a hint of acidity and fruitiness and reduces the rubbery notes of some varieties of Robusta.

This is Robusta from the highest quality from Kaweri Plantation in western Uganda and also from small farmers nearby. Since Robusta coffee is native to the region, it grows naturally in harmony with the ecology of the area and produces a distinctive rich flavour.

This article was first published in Nespresso’s customer magazine in 2006. All rights reserved.

Update: Nespresso later decided not to commit to the five-year AAA project in Uganda. Ibero and the Kaweri Alliance continue their activities independently of Nespresso.

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