UGANDA: Enjoy Arabica Coffee From The Slopes Of Mount Elgon

Coffee is Uganda's top-earning export crop. In 1989 Uganda's coffee production capacity exceeded its quota of 2.3 million bags, but export volumes were still diminished by economic and security problems, and large amounts of coffee were still being smuggled out of Uganda for sale in neighbouring countries.

Some coffee farmers cultivated cocoa trees on land already producing robusta coffee. Cocoa production declined in the 1970s and 1980s, however, and market conditions discouraged international investors from viewing it as a potential counterweight to Uganda's reliance on coffee exports.

Locally produced cocoa was of high quality, however, and the government continued to seek ways to rehabilitate the industry. Production remained low during the late 1980s, rising from 1,000 tons in 1986 to only 5,000 tons in 1989.

The Uganda Coffee Development Authority was formed in 1991 by government decree, in line with the liberalization of the coffee industry.

Robusta coffee grows natively in the Kibale forest area. From 1999 to 2002 an effort was made to commercialize this coffee as a premium consumer brand, emulating and extending the success of shade grown in Central America. Revenue from the coffee production was intended to finance conservation management activities.

Arabica coffee grows around the slopes of Mount Elgon.The coffee was introduced to Uganda from Ethiopia and naturalised along the slopes of Mount Elgon.

Coffee continued to be Uganda's most important cash crop throughout the 1980s. The government estimated that farmers planted approximately 191,700 hectares of robusta coffee, most of this in south-eastern Uganda, and about 33,000 hectares of arabica coffee in high-altitude areas of south-eastern and south western Uganda.

Most gourmet coffee lovers will tell you that the best coffees are all Arabica beans, that Arabica coffee is smoother and richer, has more flavor and is of higher quality. Robusta beans, grown at lower altitudes and in much higher volume than most Arabica plants, tend to be lower in quality and are most often used for commercial coffees.

Vietnam, one of the world’s largest producers of coffee, trades almost exclusively in the Robusta variety. Uganda, one of the largest African coffee producers, sells mostly Robusta as well—and the country may be about to put Robusta coffee on the gourmet coffee map.

Created in 1991, the Uganda Coffee Development Authority’s mission is to promote high quality standards for all coffees grown in Uganda. The country’s best coffees are grown in the eastern Bugisu region of the country, a mountainous area that supports the growing of Arabica coffee beans. Over the past few years, Bugisu coffee has started to attract the notice of some well-known coffee roasters.

In 2009, for instance, Josh at Sweet Maria’s noted in a blog post that the lot of Uganda Organic Bugisu he had just cupped had a nice lemony character, and predicted that in the next few years he expects to see micro-lots of coffee coming out of Uganda, much as they do from Rwanda and Burundi, two other African countries that focus on improving the quality and reputation of their coffees.

But that’s the Arabica, a far cry from the typical Robusta strains. Uganda’s mainstay, Robusta, accounts for nearly 85% of its annual coffee production, and has a reputation for delivering exceptionally high quality coffee beans for Robusta. The UCDA has been enforcing strict production and quality standards, as well as grading and screening the coffee beans from the various regions it covers, and the effort appears to be paying off as the price for Uganda’s highest grade of Robusta coffee commands better prices than some low quality Arabica beans from other areas.

This should be no real surprise to anyone familiar with coffee history. While Ethiopia, also in Eastern Africa, is thought to be the birthplace of coffee, Uganda is regarded as the home of the Robusta bean. A large percentage of the Robusta sourced from Uganda is still harvested from wild strains of coffee that are believed to be among the rarest in the world.

Currently, the market is suffering after a long drought that affected the development of the coffee cherries last year. The UDCA projects a reduced amount of Robusta coffee available in the 2010 season, but is attempting to increase harvest in the next few years by buying coffee seedlings from farmers and distributing them free to farmers who have lost plants to the drought.

These figures remained almost constant throughout the decade, although a substantial portion of the nation's coffee output was smuggled into neighbouring countries to sell at higher prices. Between 1984 and 1986, the European Economic Community (EEC) financed a coffee rehabilitation program that gave improved coffee production a high priority.

This program also supported research, extension work, and training programs to upgrade coffee farmers' skills and understanding of their role in the economy. Some funds were also used to rehabilitate coffee factories.

To accomplish these goals, in keeping with the second phase of the coffee rehabilitation program, the government raised coffee prices paid to producers in May 1986 and February 1987, claiming that the new prices more accurately reflected world market prices and local factors, such as inflation.

The 1987 increase came after the Coffee Marketing Board launched an aggressive program to increase export volumes. Parchment dried but unhulled robusta producer prices rose from USh24 to USh29 per kilogram. Clean hulled robusta prices rose from USh44.40 to USh53.70 per kilogram.

Prices for parchment arabica, grown primarily in the Bugisu district of south-eastern Uganda, reached USh62.50 a kilogram, up from USh50. Then in July 1988, the government again raised coffee prices from USh50 per kilogram to USh111 per kilogram for robusta, and from USh62 to USh125 per kilogram for arabica.

By December 1988, the Coffee Marketing Board was unable to pay farmers for new deliveries of coffee or to repay loans for previous purchases. The board owed USh1,000 million to its suppliers and USh2,500 million to the commercial banks, and although the government agreed to provide the funds to meet these obligations, some of them remained unpaid for another year.

Uganda was a member of the International Coffee Organization (ICO), a consortium of coffee-producing nations that set international production quotas and prices. The ICO set Uganda's annual export quota at only 4 percent of worldwide coffee exports. During December 1988, a wave of coffee buying pushed the ICO price up and triggered two increases of 1 million (60- kilogram) bags each in worldwide coffee production limits.

The rising demand and rising price resulted in a 1989 global quota increase to 58 million bags. Uganda's export quota rose only by about 3,013 bags, however, bringing it to just over 2.3 million bags. Moreover, Uganda's entire quota increase was allocated to arabica coffee, which was grown primarily in the small southeastern region of Bugisu.

In revenue terms, Uganda's overall benefit from the world price increase was small, as prices for robusta coffee—the major export—remained depressed.

In 1989 Uganda's coffee production capacity exceeded its quota of 2.3 million bags, but export volumes were still diminished by economic and security problems, and large amounts of coffee were still being smuggled out of Uganda for sale in neighbouring countries.

Then in July 1989, the ICO agreement collapsed, as its members failed to agree on production quotas and prices, and they decided to allow market conditions to determine world coffee prices for two years. Coffee prices plummeted, and Uganda was unable to make up the lost revenues by increasing export volumes.

In October 1989, the government devalued the shilling, making Uganda's coffee exports more competitive worldwide, but Ugandan officials still viewed the collapse of the ICO agreement as a devastating blow to the local economy. Fears that 1989 earnings for coffee exports would be substantially less than the US$264 million earned the previous year proved unfounded.

Production in 1990, however, declined more than 20 percent to an estimated 133,000 tons valued at US$142 million because of drought, management problems, low prices, and a shift from coffee production to crops for local consumption.

Some coffee farmers cultivated cocoa plants on land already producing robusta coffee. Cocoa production declined in the 1970s and 1980s, however, and market conditions discouraged international investors from viewing it as a potential counterweight to Uganda's reliance on coffee exports.

Locally produced cocoa was of high quality, however, and the government continued to seek ways to rehabilitate the industry. Production remained low during the late 1980s, rising from 1,000 tons in 1986 to only 5,000 tons in 1989.

The Uganda Coffee Development Authority was formed in 1991 by government decree, in line with the liberalization of the coffee industry.

Arabica Coffee production

Arabica coffee is usually grown in mixed farms with food crops for home consumption like beans, peanuts and bananas. It is mainly grown under shade trees that ensure sustainable coffee production. The leaves that fall from the shade trees provide manure for the coffee plants.

In Mbale the planting season for Arabica coffee is between March and April and harvesting is between August and November. The coffee trees are pruned from December to February before the planting season. The trees flower during the dry season.

Arabica coffee initially goes through wet processing, which involves pulping,removal of pulp and mucilage and washing the coffee beans Pulping is the removal of the outer skin of the harvested red coffee berries. After pulping the mucilage around the bean is removed by use of water.The coffee beans are washed in a sisal made basket known as a washing basket.

The farmer then has two options for drying his coffee beans. Either he dries them under the sun until they reach the required moisture content or pays to have them dried at a coffee factory. The remaining process involves removing the coffee husks, sorting of the different coffee bean sizes, roasting, grinding and packaging.

Kibale Wild Coffee Project
Robusta coffee grows natively in the Kibale forest area. From 1999 to 2002 an effort was made to commercialize this coffee as a premium consumer brand, emulating and extending the success of shade grown in Central America. Revenue from the coffee production was intended to finance conservation management activities.

Initial funding for project development came from USAID.The project was implemented with funding from the Ford Foundation and $750,000 from the World Bank Global Environment Facility. The project had initial success in setting up local production standards and procedures and control infrastructure.

Initially it was led by the Uganda Coffee Trade Federation, until the independent US-based non-profit Kibale Forest Foundation was created to take over the project. Sustainable annual yield was estimated at 1,500 pounds (680 kg). Organic certification was delivered by the Swedish KRAV labeling firm.

It was subsequently discovered that there was no demand for the product, as the robusta variety is perceived as inferior to arabica coffee typically demanded by the premium market. Various blending schemes were turned down by coffee distributors. Project leaders estimated that $800000 in marketing expenditure would be required to create demand.

UGANDA: Accommodation Facilities To Boost Tourism In Murchison Falls National Park

Several companies have bidded for three sites to construct lodges in Murchison Falls National Park to boost tourism.
According to the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) executive director, Mr Andrew Gunga Seguya, the initiative is expected to reduce on accommodation fees for more tourists.

"We invited bidders to construct a 40-bed lodge at Karuma Falls, 30-bed at Rwagongo Forest and another 30-bed at Bugungu on the Butyaba escarpment. All this is aimed at providing more accommodation for clients visiting the park," he said.

Speaking to Members of Parliament and journalists after visiting Murchison Falls National Park in a campaign to boost local tourism named tulambule last week, Mr Seguya declined to disclose the number and name of the firms that have bidded.

The Tulambule campaign started on September 23, 2016, at the onset of 2016 World Tourism Day celebrations in Mbarara. It aims at creating awareness about Uganda tour adventures and destinations and calls upon everyone to be part of this initiative by visiting the 10 national parks other game reserves in Uganda.

The Ugandan National Parks include; Bwindi Impenetrable, Kibale, Kidepo Valley, Mount Elgon, Rwenzori Mountains, Lake Mburo, Semuliki, Murchison Falls, Mgahinga Gorilla and Queen Elizabeth.

State minister for Tourism Godfrey Kiwanda, said the initiative would boost revenue to government.

Most of the accommodation in the park is billed in US dollars, something that has discouraged local tourists.
Half of the tourists that visit the park are foreigners charged entrance fee of $40 (Shs150,000) while locals pay Shs10,000.

UGANDA: Uganda's New Tourist Attraction Is Imbalu, No Escape From Painful Knife

In a small dusty village fringed by brooding blue mountains in eastern Uganda, Sullaih Kyalo is bracing himself as he is about to become a man of the Bamasaaba tribe.

The 19-year-old stands opposite the traditional surgeon, who clutches a 12-centimetre blade.

Sullaih doesn't look at the blade, but into the distance with a trance-like resolve.

Relatives, friends and neighbours surge round, anticipating the centuries-old circumcision ritual.

Sullaih's foreskin will be sliced off without anaesthetic, with the cheering crowd goading him on.

He must endure the pain without tearing, wincing, flinching or falling. To be a Mumasaaba man is to show no weakness.

"My heart is racing," his mother Salima Nesiho says of her first born.

Hundreds of Bamasaaba males between 16 and their early 20s are being initiated into manhood this rainy season, in a time-honoured ceremony called Imbalu, held every second year.

The season begins with a festival of traditional dancing, millet beer, roasted meat and offerings to ancestors.

The candidates and members of their families are smeared in millet paste to protect them from bad spirits.

Each is then paraded from village to village singing, dancing and visiting relatives over three days.

"It is a way of helping this young man to speak in public introducing the gentleman into public life," says James Kangala, a Bamasaaba man and founder of a cultural council based at the nearby town, Mbale.

The ceremony can be traced through records dating back 200 years, though the Bamasaaba believe the ritual predates these by several hundred years, with its origins lost in time.

There have been few concessions to modernity, though fresh blades are now used to prevent the spread of HIV.

Traditional surgeons or bashebi are believed to be appointed by spirits of ancestors to perform the circumcisions.

Robert Nangoye has circumcised hundreds of males over his 15 years in the role.

For a Mumasaba boy to be called a man, you have to pay a debt to the culture. It's our law, he says.

Males who try to escape it are hunted down and circumcised by force.

They'll capture you, even if you go to Europe and back. As long as he's from Bamasaaba, he will have to be circumcised, Mr Nangoye says.

However not all Bamasaaba support the ritual.

Lenard Massa, who was circumcised the traditional way in 1988, says males should have a choice.

If you go through the cultural way they take you through a painful exercise, Mr Massa says.

His young son was circumcised in a hospital, though it means he won't ever be recognised as a Bamasaaba man.

I didn't want him to go through what I did, Mr Massa says.

But for most of the tribe, the ceremony remains deeply significant. They have always been open to outsiders witnessing Imbalu, and are beginning to open up to tourists.

I found the ceremonies fascinating, says Floris Burgers, 22, from the Netherlands, who saw them this season while working in the area.

I can imagine some foreigners might find them a bit scary, but if you know the story behind the practice, there is not much to be afraid of.

The tourist board has begun promoting the opening and closing festivals, along with better known local attractions such as coffee plantations, the waterfalls and hiking at Mount Elgon.

Thousands turned out for the opening festival this year, mostly from surrounding regions.

The Government now hopes to attract international visitors.

It's something that is very young, says Stephen Asiimwe, head of the Uganda Tourism Board.

Attendance fees are being considered to help build a cultural centre celebrating and preserving the tribe's history.

It is a recognition of the importance of this Imbalu for our tribe, Mr Kangala says.

Imbalu culminates on the third day when the male is finally circumcised. If he does not flinch, he's rewarded with money, a phone, livestock and other gifts.

If you are able to face the knife and bear that pain with bravery, you are now ready to face any other situation in life, Mr Kangala says.

For 19-year-old Sullaih and his family, a lot hinges on a successful circumcision.

Any sign of weakness or reluctance could mean he is forcibly circumcised or called a coward for the rest of his life.

As a symbol of family unity and an offering to the spirits of ancestors, a goat's heart and lungs are pitched on a stick over the spot where Sullaih will become a man.

The smell of millet beer is thick in the circle surrounding the 19-year-old as the surgeon readies his blade.

The crowd erupts as he begins to cut. He stands firm, his face unmoving. It is over in seconds.

After hours on his feet, Sullaih is at last allowed to sit at the centre of the crowd.

Blood drips at his feet where money is collecting.

Asked how he feels, Sullaih has only one word: "pain."

But his suffering remains unseen.