Coffee farmers’ value addition hub takes shape 

Imagine visiting Rwashamire Town in Ntungamo and you are treated to a whole new coffee consumption experience you have never dreamed of. 

First, you are welcomed at the expansive production factory overlooking the hilly landscapes of Rwashamire, then to the European themed coffee resort deep inside the hills and finally to the vast acreage of Robusta and Arabica coffee plantations.

As Seeds of Gold reports, this pilot project by Inspire Africa set to benefit from the proposed $10m (Shs37b) government grant promises to the foreign exchange open doors to a tune of $500m (Shs1.8t) and alter their entire destiny of Ugandan coffee production.

It takes an entire day to exhaustively explore the budding Ntungamo-Rwashamire coffee hub that will set the trend upon which other six hubs countrywide will be premised.

Our detour is guided by the ambitious Nelson Tugume, the project head, who hastily expounds interlink of the major hub with the Ankole, Kigezi and Rwenzori (AKR) coffee farmers.

Tugume reveals the sprouting partnership between the Inspire of Africa value chain agenda and the  Kyamate coffee project, spearheaded by the Bishop of South Ankole Diocese Rt. Rev. Nathan Ahimbisibwe that will have the latter aided to have their own storage facilities.

Inside the main hub
According to Tugume, the hub is set to gather all graded coffee from farmers to be processed into final products and packaged for local consumption and export. 

A visit at the hub central premises treats you to three large factory houses arranged in order for primary, secondary and tertiary production of coffee. 

It will mainly cater for the tertiary production that has been lacking in Ugandan coffee production for ages adding value to produce coffee by-products such as coffee wines, drinks, lip bums.

“We have finished the first phase of installing factory machines at the primary and secondary stage of production and now ready to interlink it with the tertiary section which is key. Once that is done, we shall see the real value addition taking place and farmers getting transformed. We will then embark on the soluble coffee plant in Mukono sitting on 25 acres,” Tugume says.

Having started the project eight years ago, Tugume projects the Ntungamo hub to cost $5m upon completion with coffee tourism, resort, farmers profile systems, man-made coffee lakeside, demonstration rooms, zip lining facilities and more farms fully operational.

“We want to bring more foreign exchange into the economy. Coffee should be able to attract tourists from all over the world  to come and witness how we have merged getting value addition from our coffee, established a grand  bee apiary to pollinate the coffee, a man-made lake for irrigation and a well-designed gate-away resort that can rake in about $3,000 per visit,” he added,

Humble beginnings
Now under the flagship Coffee Investment Consortium Initiative, the project has graduated to a dream that now hopes to rake in $500m if all the six hubs across the nation are harnessed and fully operational. 

“When I visited the White House in 2013 and was forced to buy a half kilogramme of Kapchwora Coffee as a gift from an Ethiopian Restaurant at $79 changed my perception for Ugandan coffee forever. Imagine our coffee costs $2 after a lot of hard work by the farmers and local producers. This forced me into thorough research on value addition and bred this ambitious project that will leave no stone unturned,” says Tugume.

He then embarked on using Artificial Intelligence(AI) to teach farmers on how to manage the quality of coffee from the garden, handling post harvesting stage, in the factory and finally  at packing level.

At the moment, the $10m (Shs37b) is to be invested into the Coffee Consortium project that includes the six hubs of Ntungamo, Kapchwora, Namanve, Zombo, Mitooma, Rwenzori and Omukazi W’omutima in Kanungu.

Wet processing criteria
Back in December last year, President Museveni and First Lady Janet Museveni paid a visit to Rwashamire hub and were impressed by the progress of the facility.

Tugume took us through the processing of the red coffee beans from the garden to the cup in what is termed as the wet processing.

The pure red coffee cherries are pre-cleaned before being fermented for 48 hours. The hours depend on the quality and aroma desired.

They are then cleansed and taken to the drier for about four days and then taken to the dry mill to get ‘kiboko’.

It is then transferred to the coffee reception and pre-cleaned again for better quality output. 

Then the coffee beans are sent to the destoner to remove any stones and magnets before sending them to the hurling machines.

The combined hurlers will take in kiboko  and other types and then goes to the graders or screen 18 that grades coffee then goes to gravity table and then to colour sorter which does work of that 200 women do in two weeks in just two hours.

Then the coffee beans are bagged and according to Tugume, that is where Ugandans seem to stop and it is where they lose money.

“It is a quite laborious work but it will take a cunning opportunist just minutes to earn $40 from the $2 that you have sweated for,” he adds.

After this stage, the bags are then taken up by numeric elevators to tertiary production.

This is the most crucial stage because you now have cleaned coffee that you’re going to roast and get grinded, to brew  scrub, lotion cream, lip bum, coffee drink, coffee energy drink, coffee wine and ten other by products.

With ready market in China, South Korea, South Africa, US and Eastern Europe, Tugume says that they still have plans to create space for more modern machines to sustain the supply chain.

Challenges
Inevitably, Inspire Africa stepped on many toes whilst trying to break the chain of middlemen and opportunists.

They have turned the guns on the value addition concept at the world market and continue to vow to stifle its progress.

“The people that have already been in the market sabotage us. Trade is a war and you be mad and get in there. The markets are challenging and we need to promise sustainability in terms of quality and quantity,” Tugume opines.

Luckily, they have gathered required research to know what the market wants and not want they want the market to demand.

In the financial capital stress facet, few commercial banks are ready to fund long term business ventures like the Coffee Initiative yet the competing multinationals benefit from lower interest rates.

“With government support we intend to invest a total cost of $350m in all hubs and yield $500b in form of foreign exchange in the next five to ten years,” Tugume predicts.

Consortium 
Under the flagship Coffee Investment Consortium Initiative, the project has graduated to a dream that now hopes to rake in $500m if all the six hubs across the nation are harnessed and fully operational.

Visit
Back in December last year, President Museveni and First Lady Janet Museveni paid a visit to Rwashamire hub and were impressed by the progress of the facility.