How Ngabirano earns from farming

Emmy Ngabirano is an ingenious and practical person.
Unlike some leaders who preach commercial farming; he practices it. At a recent tour of his coffee seedling farm in Kagadi, western Uganda and later on at the wealth creation meetings with local councils, Ngabirano said leaders must lead by example, arguing that it makes little sense for one to preach wealth creation without being part of it.

Ngabirano, who is also active in politics, has in the last five-years distinguished himself as an industrious seedling farmer in Rukungiri and now Kagadi. “When I am not doing my public service work, I am busy in the garden planting seedlings for commercial purposes. This is what keeps me going. To be effective in doing what you do (offering leadership) you need sustainable sources of income and these seedlings give me just that,” he says.
How it all started:

Five-years ago, Ngabirano thought of how he could prosper and that is how the idea of planting and selling seedlings came to mind. For years, he had worked with peasantry communities which helped him to learn a number of things through constant interactions. But the spark was his involvement with the team that President Museveni had directed to popularise commercial growing of coffee in parts of western Uganda.

As a result of his interests and practical involvement, Ngabirano firmed his skills, thanks to the peasants who taught him how to go about seedling farming before going solo five-years later in Rukungiri and later in Kagadi, Kibaale District where he currently serves as deputy resident district commissioner.
Initial capital:

With experience got from the rural farmers, Ngabirano ventured into commercial seedling farming.
He curved out a small piece of his land which he says was not bigger than a basketball court for this venture and procured about 30,000 coffee seedlings. Ngabirano says he used about Shs3m of his own savings as the initial capital for the project. “After a period of six-months I sold my first harvest at about Shs9m, which I reinvested,” he says.

Earnings:
Ngabirano has since increased his capacity from 30,000 seedlings to 70,000 from which he says he earns at least Shs16m after every six months’ harvest. He has plans of increasing his capacity to between 150,000 and 200,000 seedlings per harvest.

Market
“There is ready market for the coffee seedlings,” Ngabirano says, adding, “the problem is the shortage of supply and not the availability of the market.” Currently, he supplies twice in a year, with government being his biggest market. With the intensification of the government wealth creation programmes, now being implemented by Uganda Peoples Defence Forces (UPDF), among others, the demand for coffee seedlings has gone up.

Ngabirano harvests between March and April and November and December and supplies the seedlings to government which in turn distribute to farmers. He said: “Government (the UPDF) buys the seedlings and distributes them as part of the extension services.” He has plans of entering private arrangements with commercial farmers to supply them seedlings as and when they need, considering that he has the capacity to do so.

Cost of the seedling:
Each seedling costs Shs300 and the beauty here is that you don’t need a huge piece of land for this venture to succeed. This means that for a small piece of land—about the size of a netball pitch, you can make not less than Shs10m a season.

Employment:
Ngabirano employs 20 people with the least getting about Shs6,000 per day.

Challenges:

According to Ngabirano, farmers involved in this kind of commercial venture rarely get the kind of financial support they deserve from financial institutions, particularly in terms of tailor-made and affordable lines of credit. This explains why the seedling industry, particularly coffee, is not as vibrant as it is supposed to be.

The other challenge, he says, is the general attitude of the population towards work.
He believes this explains why not much has been harvested commercially, despite the country’s productive soils.

Achievements so far
“I have a source of income and I am not entirely dependent on the public service for livelihood. This is important in a sense that I am able to serve the people without worrying about how to make ends meet. This has helped me focus and execute my duties,” he says. “The fact that I employ some people gives me satisfaction. I know they deserve better and that is my focus—to help them prosper,” he adds.

Advice to public servants and young entrepreneurs
People in civil service must broaden their income not through stealing public funds but getting involved income generating projects. “Salary alone is not enough, this is why civil servants should explore their entrepreneurship skills to complement their earnings,” Ngabirano said.

“Young people should stop thinking about government providing jobs but should start thinking of how to create jobs for themselves. And you do not need to start big—you can do all that slowly, and progressively,” he advises.

What others say
According to the executive director of Private Sector Foundation Uganda, Gideon Badagawa, Ngabirano should serve as a typical example of how Ugandans can explore opportunities even in the agricultural sector.

Industry outlook
According to Uganda Coffee Development Authority end of year report, which is also the third monthly report for the coffee year 2014/15, the month of November 2014, saw a total of 0.781 million Seedlings planted, bringing total planted seedlings for the Coffee Year to 35,600 million by about 215,000 households. The report also shows that nearly 225,000 of 60-kilogramme bags of coffee worth slightly more than $29m were exported in December 2014 at an average

Weighted price of $2.21 per kilogramme.
Farm-gate prices for Robusta Kiboko averaged at Shs2,100 per kilogramme with Arabica parchment going for Shs6,250 per kilogramme. Coffee exports for 12 months January to December 2014 totalled 3.44 million bags worth $409m comprising of Robusta 2.70 million bags and Arabica 0.74 million bags.
The above figures present a good outlook of the economy and present better fortunes for those who are getting into the coffee business.

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