National Coffee Bill passed, UCDA to register farmers

Parliament has passed the National Coffee Bill 2018 that will give more powers to the Uganda Coffee Development Authority to oversee the whole value chain of the cash crop, including registering farmers.

The object of the Bill is to reform the law to provide for the Uganda Coffee Development Authority to regulate, promote and oversee the coffee sub sector; and to regulate all on-farm and off-farm activities in the whole coffee value chain from generation of planting materials, planting, through harvesting up to marketing.

The Bill that will become law after President Yoweri Museveni assents to it, seeks to repeal and replace the Uganda Coffee Development Authority Act, Cap. 325 that only covered off-farm activities of marketing and processing, leaving on-farm activities like planting materials, nurseries, harvesting and post harvesting handling outside the scope of the law.

In the new law, a person shall nor a operate a pulp-ery, buy coffee, grade coffee for internal marketing, roast coffee, brew and operate a coffee shop or coffee store, operate a warehouse or coffee huller or process or export coffee on a commercial basis without a licence issued bv the Authority.

There were however several deletions and amendments before the bill was passed in parliament in Kampala on Wednesday. These included removing a clause to de-register coffee farmers who fail to meet standards and a 2-year jail term for those who fail to take care of their coffee plantations, plus removing powers from UCDA to determine whether land used by a farmer is suitable for coffee growing.

Clause 28 on de-registering farmers had stated that " The Authority may, after being satisfied that a registered coffee farmer has failed to comply with the terms and conditions of registration, strike off the register the name of the coffee farmer."

Coffee Uganda's number 1 export

Coffee is a significant source of income for farmers and export earnings to many nations including Uganda. In Uganda, coffee remains the leading export crop employing more that seven million people equivalent of 1.7 million households in over lOO coffee growing districts.

Uganda strengthened her position as Africa's top coffee exporter with a record 5.06 million (60kg) bags in the financial year 2019/20. All indications are that Uganda, 8th in the world, could also overtake Ethiopia as Africa's top coffee producer.

Export earnings also reached an all-time new level of US$494 million (Sh 1.8 trillion). Coffee exports for 2018/19 amounted to 4.18 million bags worth US $416 million compared to 4.45 million worth US $492 million the previous year

The National Coffee Bill aims to enhance the production of coffee as Uganda aims to produce 20 million bags by 2030.

Here is the bill (amendments done to clauses 32, 37,43, 54, 55 & 57) 

National Coffee Bill 2018 by The Independent Magazine on Scribd