EU regulations: Govt starts nationwide coffee stakeholders registration
EU will not accept coffee, harvested from deforested areas under the new EU Deforestation Regulation 2023. Photo / Michael Kakumirizi
What you need to know:
- In February, UCDA indicated that the EU Deforestation Regulation 2023 compliance required them to collect detailed information, especially on production and locations
Government, through the Ministry of Agriculture and Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA), has prioritised the registration of coffee value chain actors so as to enable traceability ahead of the upcoming ban by the European Union (EU) on the export of coffee harvested from deforested areas.
The move comes at a time when the EU, which provides a market for 60 percent of Uganda’s coffee exports, will effectively ban buying coffee from deforested areas.
In February, UCDA indicated that the EU Deforestation Regulation 2023 compliance required them to collect detailed information, especially on production and locations to determine the level of risk of exported coffee to the environment.
The regulation requires that coffee planted after December 2020 must prove that no deforestation took place before it was planted, which seeks to promote environmental protection.
While launching the exercise in Kampala, Agriculture Minister Frank Tumwebaze, said fortunately, the newly enacted National Coffee Act, 2021 had already provided for the establishment of a national register for coffee value chain actors, noting that “this partly answers the compliance requirement of registration of coffee value chain actors an essential precursor to the creation of a National Traceability System”.
The EU Deforestation Regulation measures, he said, were vital in supporting coffee farmers, enhancing sustainability, improving market access, and ensuring compliance with both local and international protocols.
Mr Tumwebaze also noted that the registration was a free process, whose aim is, apart from enabling the development of the value chain and access to global markets, will also include overseeing the effective implementation of EU Deforestation Regulations.
UCDA data indicates that more than 80 percent of Uganda’s coffee is produced by smallholder farmers, which means that supply chain are so long and difficult to trace the origin of all exported coffee.
The registration process will, therefore, capture geolocation data for all production plots where coffee or related products are cultivated and capture data on all value chain actors including farmers, traders, and processors.
The registration will be conducted by enumerators on behalf of UCDA and will record essential details of the value chain actors such as names, farm names and location and types of coffee grown.
The process will also map gardens by recording their GPS coordinates, which data shall be stored and managed by UCDA to ensure compliance with existing and future regulations.
