A glimpse of the lives of coffee growers in Uganda, in the light of climate change

Science at work 5 December 2024

According to some reports, coffee beans are the second most widely sold commodity worldwide. However, coffee growers are some of the world's poorest farmers, and climate change is making matters worse. A photo report on the daily lives of coffee farmers in Uganda.

Freshly harvested coffee cherries will be dried in the sun or in a dryer, sheltered from the rain
Freshly harvested coffee cherries will be dried in the sun or in a dryer, sheltered from the rain

The basics

Uganda is the second largest coffee producer in Africa, after Ethiopia
Coffee is primarily grown on family farms, and is the main cash crop for almost 70% of the country's population
The ROBUST project, funded by the European Union and coordinated by CIRAD, is working to adapt the sector, by crossing with local varieties and adopting agroforestry techniques.

A photo report by Martin Champon, produced as part of the ROBUST project

Despite an annual market of more than 40 billion euros in 2022, coffee growers are some of the world's poorest farmers. Their crops are grown near the Equator, across Asia, Central America and Africa.

Being of volcanic origin, the soil in the Rwenzori mountains is very fertile. This enables highly diverse and productive agriculture: coffee, vanilla, matooke bananas, beans, avocados, potatoes, etc

In Uganda, the second largest coffee producer in Africa, after Ethiopia, over 70% of the population works in the agricultural sector. Coffee plantations are primarily operated by "small-scale producers", in other words families who cultivate their land. Coffee is one of the main cash crops for these families, along with vanilla, maize and sometimes cotton. As Fabrice Pinard, an agronomist with CIRAD and coordinator of the EU ROBUST project, says, "according to a Ugandan proverb, coffee never lies. It is the cornerstone of daily life for families, villages and nearby towns, and can always be relied on".

The income from these crops allows families to purchase what they cannot produce themselves (food, clothing, tools) and educate their children. A wide network of cooperatives and coffee factories enables producers to pool resources such as machinery for drying and hulling coffee cherries, warehouses for storing coffee bags, communication means, and skills for billing and distribution. Coffee bags are transported by truck to the port of Mombasa in Kenya, for export to consumer countries.

A worker picks cherries in a coffee field run by a convent

Coffee farmers working with Arabica coffee sort freshly harvested cherries: they remove those that are not ripe enough to ensure high-quality coffee

Coffee cherries drying in the sun in the Rwenzori mountains

Outside of the main roads, tracks are often in poor condition, especially during the rainy season. Transporting goods (matooke bananas, coffee cherries) from the fields to the bulking centres is one of the biggest challenges for farmers and cooperatives

Like all agricultural products, coffee is affected by the consequences of climate change. On the one hand, the quantity and quality of harvested
cherries are already being impacted by the lack of rain. Moreover, the distinction between rainy and dry seasons is becoming less pronounced. Despite Uganda’s average CO2 emissions per capita being below 0.15 tons per year, Ugandan coffee farmers have to adapt to the consequences of climate change, which is mainly induced by developed countries.