By Jimmy Komakech

Gulu City

Some coffee farmers in Acholi sub region have decried lack of coffee seedlings to make them engage in large scale coffee growing coupled with the unstable weather patterns.  The farmers contend that the coffee seedlings are too expensive and not easy to get.

Catharina Ange, a coffee farmer in Unyama sub county Gulu District says that besides the coffee seedlings not being available, farmers also lack money to manage big coffee plantations.

Ange, added that preparing the gardens for women is not easy since it is a requirement to dig deep holes for planting coffee and also the absence of rain sometimes hinders their effort to venture in coffee farming. “yes, it`s true that some coffee Seedlings were given for free under the pilot project, where we received only 450 coffee Seedlings per farmer that can plant only one hectare and only a few farmers in the district benefited from that”, she remarked.

But as a remedy to the existing challenge, Orik Oryem a coffee farmer in Gulu district is multiplying coffee seedlings for more farmers. According to Oryem, he is doing coffee seedling production where he has received 2,100 seedlings for multiplication garden to ensure that farmers don’t go looking for seedlings again from far.  

Patrick Oloya, the District Agricultural officer Gulu questioned the little budget allocation by the Uganda Coffee Development Authority and yet it is one of the cash crops Uganda is reaping big from.  

However, Andima Turbo, the coordinator Coffee development authority for northern Region disclosed that there is a special consideration being deployed for coffee farmers in northern Uganda for free distribution of seedlings but in other regions, the farmers are now buying coffee seedlings. “Plans are there to distribute free coffee seedlings to coffee farmers in Northern Uganda”, he said.   

Before Covid 19, the Uganda Coffee Development had a proposed budget of 25 million for coffee seedlings to be distributed to coffee farmers across the greater northern Uganda but fell shot to only Four Million seedlings to be given to farmers making a huge gap of 20 million seedlings undistributed.

Despite the huge potential for increasing the production of coffee (Uganda is the only coffee growing country that can harvest two crops per year), the country’s capacity to expand its production remains inadequate due to a number of challenges.

COVER PHOTO: A coffee crop in a mulched farm By Jimmy Komakech