KAMPALA (Reuters) -Uganda projects its coffee production in the 2025/26 (Oct-Sept) crop year will surge 14.8% from the previous period, boosted by yields from newly-planted acreage, a senior official from the agricultural ministry said on Thursday.
The East African country is the continent’s leading exporter of the beans and predominantly cultivates the robusta variety.
Production and export volumes have been climbing sharply in recent months, riding a global coffee price boom and extra harvests from maturing new trees.
In the crop year spanning 12 months to next September, Uganda expects to produce 9.3 million 60-kilogram bags of coffee, up from a forecast of 8.1 million bags in the previous period, Gerald Kyalo, commissioner for coffee department at the agriculture ministry, told Reuters.
“The major reason is increased planting. Many farmers have planted coffee which we anticipate will come into production this year and will inevitably push up exports as well,” he said.
Over the years, the government of President Yoweri Museveni has been handing out free seedlings to new and existing farmers to expand their acreage or open up new farmland.
The government has also been helping farmers with free fertiliser in order to help the country achieve its goal of producing 30 million bags annually by 2030.
In the 12 months to August, Uganda earned $2.2 billion from its coffee exports, up 57% from the previous period, according to data from the ministry.
(Reporting by Elias Biryabarema; Editing by Harikrishnan Nair)
