Share this article

Vice president, Jessica Alupo addressing delegates at G-25 Africa Coffee Summit on Tuesday.

According to Uganda’s vice president, Jessica Alupo, more than nine million people in the country depend on jobs associated with the coffee industry to make a living.

That represents 5% of Uganda’s total population. According to Alupo, this explains why the crop is positioned strategically in the National Resistance Movement (NRM) Manifesto of 2021–2026. She was speaking to attendees on Tuesday 8^th August at the start of the two-day second G-25 Africa Coffee Summit in Kampala, the capital of Uganda.

The summit’s theme, “Transforming the African Coffee Sector through Value Addition,” was presented by President Yoweri Museveni.

Figure Delegates of the G25 Africa Coffee Summit

Vice President Jessica Alupo stated that coffee is a significant cash crop for Uganda and is farmed on an estimated 583,000 hectares of land by roughly 1.8 million smallholder farmers, some of them are households with female heads of household. She said that 5.8 million 60-kg bags of coffee were exported by Uganda in the most recent fiscal year (2022-2023), generating $845 million (sh3.1 trillion). This was an increase from the 3.5 million 60-kilogram coffee bags sold seven years prior.

Alupo credits the “Government’s deliberate efforts in coffee replanting” for the growth in export volumes and applauded coal farmers “for embracing the government programs, especially those of agriculture.”

“Your Excellencies Coffee is one of the commodities that the African Continental Free Trade Area, which depends on utilizing the comparative and competitive advantages of African countries, stands to benefit,” said the Vice President 

“Under the Parish Development Model, coffee is one of our strategic enterprises, and we expect that it will contribute significantly to elevating our people from poverty while applying the four-acre model in the NRM manifesto.”