As price fluctuations for various agricultural produce on the global market continue to impact the incomes of farmers, the three-day training by Agribusiness Development Centre (ADC) is vital for the growth of the Ugandan coffee and cocoa subsectors.
ADC in partnership with DFCU Limited and Rabo Foundation and in collaboration with GOPA Worldwide have organized yet another training to teach coffee and cocoa growers about price risk management as part of the ‘Enhancing the Competitiveness of Small and Medium Enterprises (ECOS)’ project.
This is one of the training ADC offers especially for the export crops of coffee and cocoa where we see a lot of risk faced by businesses that export or trade locally but are not well conversant of how to manage the price risk among other risks.
Through the training, beneficiaries are educated about coffee and cocoa pricing mechanisms like Price, Volatility, international prices, differentials, Local vs Fair-trade market etc
By understanding these strategies, farmers can take appropriate actions to protect their income and improve their profitability. This training program continues to provide valuable and relevant insights into the techniques and tools available to manage price risk, enabling farmers to make more informed decisions about in their businesses.
“We partnered with GOPA who are implementing a project ECOS and we are well aligned to see SMEs being able to be well equipped to unlock markets and more potential working with GOPA has given us an opportunity to scale operations this year for PRM,” says Josephine Mukumbya the executive director, ADC
She says that this time round, they intend to have 3 cohorts to benefit from the training in the first quarter of the calendar year 2023 (January – March) where normally they have been training just one.
“We have already invited about 100 enterprises and hope to have gone through the cycle for both the beginner’s course which is happening now and the advanced happening later on in the year.” She adds
“What we have seen in the past happening from this PRM training is that much smaller youth led enterprise are being able to take their coffee from the local market to international, negotiate good terms, and touch higher prices they haven’t interfaced with before while trading more extensively and enabling them access finance”
By providing these valuable insights and practical exercises, the training enables farmers to take control of their income and build more resilient businesses. This is a vital step towards ensuring the long-term growth and sustainability of Uganda’s coffee and cocoa industries
“Our role as ECOS is to assist businesses with innovation and digitalization, access to finance, quality management, and market development, and to accomplish this, we chose an eco-system approach in which we work with people who are already doing the work.”saysJimmy Byaruhanga who is the team leader at ECOS (Enhancing the Competitiveness of Small and medium enterprises in Uganda)
“This is how we came to partner with Agribusiness Development Centre because they are already working within the agricultural sector and supporting SMEs with very high-level interventions such as this Price Risk Management training and the Business Acceleration Program- BAP.
Charles Wetaka- MD Nasaga Investments (U) ltd an exporter and a beneficiary of the PRM says they had challenges procuring coffee, and contract negotiations on international coffee pricing terms but they are now able to understand international buyers’ interest and make positions on break-even points to give out products buyers are interested in.
“We feared exporting coffee internationally and yet we weren’t benefiting from local trading. We were selling bigger volumes on the local market but with little profits but after the training we focused on international markets and we are now selling small volumes with high profits” he says
The Agribusiness Development Centre has recognized the importance of price risk management for the growth of Uganda’s coffee and cocoa industries in the past four years. By providing this training, they are helping to build the capacity of farmers and exporters to manage price risks effectively, and to improve their livelihoods through increased profitability.
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