Apac coffee growers intensify campaign to boost coffee production

5 September 2026, 12:55 pm

By Daniel Odongo

The Apac Coffee Growers and Marketing Cooperative Society has stepped up its sensitisation campaign to encourage farmers and other residents to embrace coffee growing across the district.

The decision follows an executive meeting held on Friday at the Production Hall in Apac.

During the meeting, the cooperative leadership resolved to mobilise farmers and other willing residents across all sub-counties and divisions in Apac to take up coffee production.

The mobilisation exercise will involve collecting information on farmers, including the size of land under coffee, production levels and challenges affecting their farming activities.

The cooperative will then organise a series of training sessions to equip farmers with knowledge and skills in coffee management, while exploring better markets for their produce.

Speaking after the meeting, the cooperative chairperson, Sam Opio, said the executive committee, together with district and sub-county leaders, would work closely with local communities to address their needs and provide technical knowledge on coffee growing.

Opio noted that some farmers still had limited knowledge about coffee, which is relatively new as a major crop in some parts of the district.

He urged the cooperative executive to make the one-week mobilisation campaign productive by encouraging more farmers to embrace coffee growing and join the cooperative.

Opio said the Apac cooperative aspired to emulate successful coffee cooperatives in other parts of the country.

He called for unity among farmers and stakeholders, saying collective efforts could help Apac attract a coffee processing factory in the future.

According to Opio, establishing a processing facility in the district would add value to locally produced coffee and enable farmers to secure better prices for their produce.

The Ugandan Government, through the Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA) and Operation Wealth Creation (OWC), has been promoting coffee growing in Northern Uganda as a way of increasing household incomes and reducing poverty.

OWC has proposed expanding coffee cultivation to about one million acres across the region.

The Government has also invested Shs60 billion to expand coffee production in Northern Uganda, including supplying and planting more than 23 million coffee seedlings, while considering irrigation and other agricultural inputs.

The initiative is part of Uganda’s broader Coffee Roadmap, which seeks to increase national coffee production and strengthen the sector as a major source of export earnings.