Kampala — In the late 1970s and early 1980s, coffee was Uganda's cash cow. Over the years the crop's production and performance on global markets has dwindled. Coffee production is dropping in the wake of increased demand and consumption for the crop globally.

The International Coffee Development Organisation (ICO) puts the annual growth consumption estimate at 2.4% with a projection of 170 bags in a period of 10 years. This estimate provides an excellent opportunity for countries like Uganda that have, over years, depended on coffee as a major cash crop.

In the past four months of the coffee year that started last October, Uganda exported 58,276.5 tonnes, valued at $91.9m (sh184b). This represents an overall drop of 10% and 15% in volume and value respectively.

The low productive capacity can be attributed to the fact that Africa's coffee has not competed well with coffee from other countries partly due to a sharp decline in subsidies to the coffee sector. In addition, the intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change argues that changes in climate will affect production because of the change in rainfall and disease patterns.

According to the East African Fine Coffee Association, support towards the revitalisation of the coffee sector should be directed towards reducing production costs and making available enough cultivatable land. This should be complemented with building systems that guarantee water harvest to lessen the effects of climate change.

One way in which coffee farmers can be assisted is through supporting formation of production cooperatives to address the issues of production, collective marketing and quality assurance. Area cooperative enterprises are playing a vital role in stimulating production, value addition and collective marketing for farmers.

The cooperatives identify at least three enterprises which they promote. The members are assisted to collectively market their produce, acquire quality input supplies and technical assistance to improve quality through best practices such as pest control.

Uganda's survival as an agro-based economy lies in its ability to tap into world markets such as that of coffee.

The writer is is a Market and Product Specialist at the Microfinance Support Centre