Feature: Arabica coffee, Uganda's treasured money-minting crop

Arabica Coffee is the mainstay of the Bagisu tribesmen who live on the slopes of Mt. Elgon, an ancient volcano on the border of Uganda and Kenya.

First planted in the area in 1912, the crop has been a heritage passed on. The over three million Bagisu who farm the mountain derive their livelihood from Arabica coffee.

"A home that has no coffee as an income, that means that home is doomed. Coffee is the main cash crop here. It sustains all the livelihood of the people," Polly Mugoya, a coffee farmer told Xinhua in a recent interview.

For many decades, coffee has been the money making machine for Uganda, contributing between 20-30 percent of the foreign exchange earnings, according to figures by the Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA), a state-owned agency.

Uganda farms two types of coffee, Robusta and Arabica. Unlike Robusta, Arabica coffee is more competitive on the international market because of its superior quality.

High up the Mt. Elgon ranges, a conducive environment for the growth of Arabica coffee, farmers tend to their gardens. The farms range from large scale farmers who own thousands of trees to small scale who just have a number of trees.

64-year-old Joab Keki takes pride in Arabica coffee, which he says has changed people's livelihood.

Keki owns over 100,000 Arabica coffee trees on his 500 acre land in Namanyoyi Sub County in Mbale district.

The harvest season peaks from October to February of the next year before flowering starts in April.

When the harvest time comes, the whole family helps to pick the red cherries and dries them in the sun before transporting them for sale on donkeys, bicycles or baskets on the head.

Through a farmer's union, Bugisu Cooperative Union, farmers have over the years built schools, improved the road infrastructure to ease market access and also given out bursaries to disadvantaged and yet bright students.

The fluctuating coffee prices on the international market are causing a daunting challenge to the farmers. Some farmers have started diversifying and moving to cocoa farming.

Keki is one such farmer. He told Xinhua that at the peak prices in 2011 when a kilogram of premium parchment traded at 4 U.S. dollars, he raked in 11,000 dollars in annual earnings from the crop.

The steady decline in prices of parchment to 2.5 dollars per kilogram of parchment the subsequent year and 1.5 dollars at present saw his annual coffee earnings plunge to 5,100 dollars in 2012 and 4,700 dollars 2013 year.

"Cocoa beans are fermented for seven days and dried on the tarpaulins. Coffee, on the other hand, requires more labor and machinery. I have to part with 1.5 dollars daily to pay each of my casual laborers to pick the red cherries during the harvest season."

The UCDA however argues that in spite of low world prices, coffee production remains competitive, especially for Uganda which is a low-cost producer with low marginal cost of production.

Mugoya argues that they are now looking at other markets like China where they can sell the coffee.

He says that Chinese investors could partner with coffee farmers to provide high quality coffee to the Chinese market. Enditem