Uganda’s coffee exports topped 5.1 million bags in the financial year 2019/2020, a 21% jump compared to a year before, the Ministry of Finance has said. Each bag is 60 kilograms.
The Ministry says in the latest reporting that this was the highest figure the country has exported in a single financial year. As a result, the country earned US$ 494 million (UGX1.8 trillion).
The numbers are up both in value and volume. For an instance in the 2018/19 financial year, the ministry indicates Uganda exported 3.9m bags of coffee and earned US$ 415m (UGX1.5trillion) in 2018/19 year.
“Depending on how production figures for FY2019/20 turnout, the year 2020 could see Uganda, which is already Africa’s largest coffee exporter, overtaking Ethiopia as Africa’s largest coffee producer,” the ministry notice says.
Uganda’s coffee production reached 7million bags. Ethiopia’s annual production is projected to reach 7.35million bags. Ethiopia, where much coffee is consumed locally, is expected to report 4 million bags in exports.
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Uganda spectacularly failed to beat its target to produce 20 million bags per year by 2020. The ministry says the revised target for the coffee roadmap is 20 million bags by 2025.
Prof Ezra Suruma, the former finance minister and now coffee focal point at the delivery unit of the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) said the country failed to hit the target because implementers did not follow president’s directives.
He said while the president had ordered coffee production must reach 20 million bags by 2020, the Uganda coffee development the authority had other plans of just 6 million bags.
