by Agrimoney.com
Uganda, one of the world's most historic coffee producers, is this year to make only limited progress towards a goal of raising production record levels reached in the 1990s, despite some headway in tackling disease and agronomic setbacks.
The African country, which gave the world the robusta coffee variety, is to lift production by 200,000 bags to 3.2m bags in 2011-12, matching its highest of the last decade, US Department of Agriculture attaches said.
"Production is expected to increase slightly because farmers have renewed interest in coffee farming due to strong coffee prices and reinvigoration of the industry" stemming from a government "reinvigoration" campaign, the attaches said in a report.
"As a result of both, agronomic practices have improved and yields have increased."
Indeed, yield increases to 1.2 kilogrammes per tree, from 0.5 kilogrammes, have been achieved from measures such as planting robusta trees resistant to coffee wilt and government assistance to farmers with efforts such as pruning.
'Number of challenges'
Nonetheless, the Ugandan harvest remains way below the 4.5m bags the government is targeting by 2015, a harvest that would beat the record 4.3m bags set in 1997. Ugandan output topped 4m bags even in 1969, when it ranked significantly above Vietnam, now the world's second-ranked producer.
Attaches flagged "a number of challenges" to the campaign, including "unpredictable weather, pests and diseases and declining soil fertility".
"In addition, coffee tree replacement has not occurred at projected levels."
Exports were forecast rising by 200,000 bags, in line with production, in 2011-12 to 2.8m bags, an eight-year high but still well below levels above 4m bags reached in the 1990s
Weather setbacks
Uganda's drive to lift coffee output was dented in 2009-10 by persistently dry conditions in parts of the east and centre of the country, which account for more than half of production.
More recently, drought has hit parts of neighbouring Tanzania too, a factor in part behind a Tanzania Coffee Board forecast that production will fall nearly 20% to 750,000 bags (45,000 tonnes) in 2010-11.
The USDA attaches, who also pegged the Tanzanian crop at 750,000 bags, also cited a two-year cycle in Tanzania of higher and lower production seasons, as occurs in Brazil.
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