Member of the Month

May 2009: National Union of Coffee Agribusinesses and Farm Enterprises (NUCAFE)

NUCAFE is National Union of Coffee Agribusinesses and Farm Enterprises and was founded in 1995 as the Uganda Coffee Farmers Association (UCFA). In 2003, UCFA changed its name to NUCAFE in response to its members’ needs as a result of a needs assessment and strategic planning exercise carried out earlier that year.

Vision:

Coffee farmers profitably own their coffee along the value chain for their sustainable livelihoods.

Mission:

To develop and establish sustainable market-driven system of coffee farmer associations and groups that are empowered to enhance their household incomes.

Membership:

Currently, NUCAFE has 125 coffee farmers associations at sub county level spread all over 5 main coffee growing regions of Uganda, with over 100,000 coffee farming families.

Country coverage:

NUCAFE operates in all the five coffee producing regions of Uganda and covers 19 districts namely Rukungiri, Bushenyi, Masaka, Rakai, Mpigi, Wakiso, Jinja, Kayunga, Iganga, Mbale, Sironko, Kapchorwa, Nebbi, Gulu, Bundibugyo, Sironko, Bududa, Manafa and Arua.

NUCAFE ownership model:

Farmers and farmer groups are encouraged to take on as many functions as possible within the value chain in order to improve their incomes. Under this, NUCAFE empowers farmers with goods and services that enable farmers to upgrade and move up the coffee value chain. Here, roles of middlemen and processors change. Instead of buying, trader-processors are only processing and milling the coffee. The processed product later goes back to the farmer for value addition. The farmer is encouraged to continue sorting, grading, roasting, grinding and branding the coffee among others.

Current activities:

NUCAFE is implementing a farmer driven approach to better position the farmers within the coffee value chain. This is aimed at enhancing quality and increased market value share. All these activities are implemented using the “farmer ownership” model.

Achievements:

NUCAFE ’s 2005 target was to organize and train 5,000 smallholder coffee farmers into 160 groups. The actual results saw more than 18,000 farmers in 16 districts organized into 600 groups averaging 30 members each. The farmers that chose to work with NUCAFE are committed to adopting good agricultural practices, accessing training and producing coffee of uniform quality that meets the market needs.

In 2005, NUCAFE also substantially increased the number of marketing associations formed by its members from 60 to 102. The associations bulk the coffee for processing, access market and price information and sell the coffee at a negotiated price. The sale proceeds are paid directly to each group at its local village bank account. The associations, which are based at sub county level, also co-ordinate farmers’ access to inputs, appropriate technologies, training, information and credit.

In terms of marketing, the amount of coffee sold directly to buyers through the NUCAFE system went from 69 metric tonnes in 2004 to 125 tonnes in the following year, with 25 tonnes sold through the “warehouse receipt system” and 9 tonnes through the Commodity Exchange in Kampala, Uganda. Through improved quality, value addition in form of minimal processing and by negotiating directly with buyers, prices obtained by farmers increased. The change was dramatic, from Uganda shillings 300 (about USD. 0.1) for 2 kilograms of dry unprocessed coffee cherries (kiboko) to as much as Uganda shillings 2,000 (USD. 0.9) per kilogram of Fair Average Quality (FAQ).

With the support of coffee support network of Solidaridad, NUCAFE provided Kibinge Coffee Farmers Association with technical assistance towards the final stages of implementation of Utz Certified compliance and certification.

NUCAFE has successfully used partnerships to increase the impact of its highly effective empowerment model, which provides farmers with knowledge, capacity for change in attitude and skills for the future to build sustainable businesses within the value chain.

In 2005, NUCAFE entered into public - private partnership with key Government of Uganda agencies such as the National Agricultural Advisory Services (NAADS) and the Coffee Research Institute (CORI). At the international level, NUCAFE has strong partnerships with IFAP, AGRICORD, IVA, Solidaridad Coffee Support Network, Utz Certified Foundation, CIRAD, Oxfam and the Global Alliance on Coffee and Other Commodities (GLACC). NUCAFE is the co-ordinating focal point for GLACC, Africa chapter.

To NUCAFE, coffee is used as an entry point and an integral part of other enterprises in the farming system. To this end, NUCAFE is also involved in cocoa and macadamia nuts, providing coffee farmers with diversified sources of income in form of risk management.

NUCAFE Targets for 2006-2015:

• By 2009, to have 600 member associations organized and documented in a database and on a fully fledged NUCAFE own website.
• Continuously build both managerial and leadership capacity in all associations and groups for effective delivery of services to individual small holder coffee farmers.
• Continuously deliver coffee agricultural knowledge to farmers.
• Marketing 20% of green coffee directly to roasters and 50% to exporters.
• 10% of NUCAFE member associations certified under Fair Trade, Utz Certified and Organic by 2009.
• In 9 years to work with 350,000 small holder farming families.
• In 9 years NUCAFE members export at least 1.5 million bags of coffee which should be about 33% of the expected national production.
• Total household small holder family income of NUCAFE members should be at least Uganda Shillings 500,000 (about USD. 227.2) per month.
• Create local market through improved domestic coffee consumption by 6% per annum

Contact us:

National Union of Coffee Agribusinesses and Farm Enterprises (NUCAFE)
Coffee House, 2nd Floor, Suite 2.7,
Plot 35, Jinja Road.
P. O. Box 34967,
Kampala, Uganda.
Tel: +256 (0)414 236 199
Fax: +256 (0)414 236 199
E-mail: info@nucafe.org |nucafe@africaonline.co.ug
Website: www.nucafe.org

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