In response to the demands of farmers and exporters of coffee and cocoa, the Agribusiness Business Development Centre (ADC) and SEATINI have just finished two days of training on price risk management. ADC hosted 40 representatives of farm-based organizations from various parts of the East, West, and Central regions. The training focused on the market fundamentals of demand and supply.
The participants of the training had a chance to get an in-depth market analysis from the ADC business advisors, who emphasized the need for traders to always give updates on the ground with respect to logistics management to earn the trust of their contractors.
Roland Ainebyona Rwambuka business advisor ADC,” The farmers are exposed to a number of risks both internal and external. This training is to enhance their capacity to come up with strategies and tools to use to mitigate the risks to improve their efficiency. There is no business without risk therefore the role of the farmers is to be well prepared to mitigate these risks.
The world coffee production for 2022/23 is forecast to rebound by 7.8 million bags from the previous year to 175 million, due primarily to Brazil’s Arabica crop entering the on-year of the biennial production cycle.
Brendah Akankunda from SEATINI, who is the main partner during this PRM training, says, “Their main concern is to make sure there are fair prices for the farmers, there are no violations of rights along the value chains, but importantly to encourage value addition because Uganda has been trapped at the lower end of the chain.”
Throughout our various engagements with stakeholders, we have seen the need for capacity building and this training is addressing that”
The main objective of ADC’s work is to make agribusiness self-sufficient and profitable.
Nassaga Investment Ltd.’s Wataaka Charles tells the story of how their coffee was rated as the best but was not being sold on the global market.
“For me, I am a typical farmer which means I understand things at a local level, and yet as a leader of the organization, I need to be getting market for the coffees that we are producing. We were operating like an island but during the first training of the ADC, opened my eyes to how to negotiate for international markets and learnt how to coordinate and network with other coffee producers, in fact from the training in March, we got a buyer who desired to buy our coffee and we were to negotiate and understand the incoterms that secured us a good deal.” I appeal to the ADC and SEATINI with other stakeholders to expand this training to our regions.