Brief History of coffee in Uganda

Uganda is the second home of coffee. While the milder Arabica varieties orginated in Ethiopia, the robusta species are indigenous to the Nganda regions of Uganda. John Speke.. writings of his journey through what is now Uganda, described coffee being prepared as a soup. Wild varieties are still found in the foothills of the Rwenzori mountains in western Uganda, where they are harvested as a speciality ECO coffee and marketed as the "Kibale wild"
Robusta coffee makes up 85-90%(by weight) of the coffee exported by Uganda. The bushes of the Nganda and Erecta varieties are grown in a crescent on the plains north and west of Lake Victoria at an altitude of about 1200 metres.

Arabicas came late to East Africa, introduced from Malawi (then Nyasaland) in the early 1990s, long after they had become an established crop in central and south America. In the equatorial heat, arabica coffee requires cool, moist and higher altitudes, the bushes thrive on Uganda's mountain fringes, on Mount Elgon in the East and on the Rwenzoris and West Nile(Nebbi and Okoro Districts) on the border with Congo.The main varities are SL14, SL28, KP162, KP423 and the Bugisu local.Uganda'a noted arabica is from Bugisu, on the western slopes of Mount Elgon in Mbale district, where it was first introduced in 1912. It grows as high as 2300 metres. There are plans to extend arabicas into the lowland robusta areas using newly developed varieties.

By 1914, European and Asian farmers had established 135 plantations,occupying 58,000 acres of land, but the crop was abandoned when prices fell in the 1920s. It was left to African smallholders to continue the farming of coffee, though at first the acreage was insignificant. By 1931, only 17,000 acres were under cultivation. The coffee Board was set up in 1929, later becoming the Coffee Industry Board in 1943 and then the Coffee Marketing Board in 1959.
The colonial government, eager to see the development of a cash crop economy, divided the country into agro-ecological zones, each specializing in particular crops. Tobacco in Acholi (Kitgum and Gulu), cotton in West Nile and coffee in the central. In the 1950s, extension workers promoted a coffee planting campaign that saw production reach 2 million bags by the early 1960s, and more than 3 million by 1969/1970.(each bag containing 60kg).

The subsequent years of civil strife in Uganda saw economc life stagnate and coffee production fall back. The National Resistance Movement(NRM) government returned some stability to the country after taking power in 1986, but the collapse of the International Coffee Agreement three years later prompted world prices to crash a little more than half their previous level.
Prices recovered briefly following the frost which in June 1994 destroyed much of the Brazilian crop for that and the following year. Ugandan prosuction increased in response to the higher prices, with exports reaching 4 million bags in 1995-96 and 1996-97.
Current levels of production place Uganda about 7th in the World league table for coffee and 3rd to Veitnam and Cote d'lvoire in exporting robusta.

To be continued..........................