Professionalizing the business in order to start the export ambitions

NUCAFE, National Union of Coffee Agribusinesses and Farm Enterprises, in existence since 1995, is a Ugandan cooperative involved in coffee procurement and marketing. It has a membership of 160 Ugandan primary societies spread over 5 main coffee growing regions in Uganda representing more than 150.000 coffee farming households. NUCAFE's system of operation is premised on the Farmer Ownership Model (FOM), which is designed to help small-scale coffee farmers to adopt a business view of farming and organize themselves to assume as many roles in the value chain as possible. NUCAFE's mission is to develop and establish a sustainable market-driven system of coffee farmer societies through which farmers participate fully in determining the economic future for their households and rural economy. In order to procure and mobilise the coffee of its members, NUCAFE has until now established 8 so-called Hubs which are strategically and logistically located in the towns of Masaka, Bushenyi, Kasese, Nkokonjeru, Mityana, Wakiso, Kapchorwa and Phaida. Every Hub consists of a small building with an office and storage space. The Hubs are usually located on the premises of a hulling factory where farmers can process their kiboko (dried berries) into FAQ (Fair Average Quality) against a small hulling fee. After hulling they can sell their FAQ coffee at the Hub (NUCAFE only buys FAQ). NUCAFE secretariat would like to see that that the hubs become stronger and start operating more independent from the secretariat. With the new export processing facility in place (July 2014), the Hubs should become more independent in the mobilisation and export of coffee by using the market linkage services and export facilities of NUCAFE secretariat. This means that NUCAFE secretariat will link the Hubs to local and international buyers/markets. All Hubs cover a specific region of Uganda. Therefore strong marketing concepts can be developed for every Hub with which NUCAFE can focus on the increasing demand for speciality coffee. The Hubs are currently in the process of becoming Fairtrade and Organic certified. These certifications in combination with the focus on speciality coffee will results in higher prices and premiums on the world market. NUCAFE has already spent al lot of effort on educating their farmers on quality improvement and therefore NUCAFE now has the chance to diversify its coffee from regular Ugandan coffee. It can become an exporter of high quality certified speciality coffee, assuring high demand from buyers and higher prices for farmers. Currently NUCAFE secretariat still plays an essential role in the mobilisation, bulking and transport to Kampala of coffee from farmers and member associations. This is mainly caused by the fact that most associations and Hubs are not enough developed to manage the bulking and transportation related activities themselves. In the future however, it is expected that Hubs and member association will acquire knowledge, skills, assets and working capital themselves to individually transport their coffee to the NUCAFE export facility in Kampala. When the NUCAFE export facility in Kampala is realised, member associations will even be able to find their own international buyers and export their coffee through the NUCAFE export facility themselves, realising optimal value for the coffee of their farmers.