On August 13, 2021, President Museveni signed the National Coffee Bill into law. The new law repeals and replaces Uganda Coffee Development Act, Cap 325, which has been in effect for 29 years. The National Coffee Act, per the authority, is intended to address farmers’ current demands as well as their long-term objectives but this is unrealistic and bound to fail.
The prior regularisation, according to the Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA), only regulated off-farm activities of marketing and processing while on-farm activities like planting materials, nurseries, harvesting and post-harvest handling were outside its mandate. However, coffee accounts for 13-15 percent of total export profits and employs over 7 million Ugandans; every policy that affects it should be closely scrutinized!
The Act places all on and off farm activities in the coffee value chain under the UCDA. For example, according to the Act, “a person shall not operate a pulpery, buy coffee, grade coffee, roast coffee, brew coffee, operate a coffee shop or coffee store, a warehouse of coffee huller or process or export coffee on a commercial basis without a license issued by UCDA.”…..
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