Africa-Press – Tanzania. THE Kagera Cooperative Union (KCU 1990 Ltd) has distributed over one million clonal coffee trees to the farmers in efforts to improve production of the crop.
KCU (1990 Ltd) General Manager, Mr Edson Rugaimukamu explained that this was among the strategies taken by the regional authorities to revamp coffee production.
“Farmers are encouraged to plant clonal coffee varieties that are resistant to Coffee Wilt Disease (CWD) for increased yields and earn more money. The robusta varieties are high yielding and resistant to the coffee berry disease. A well-managed robusta coffee plant could produce up to two kilograms, enabling a farmer to pocket at least 6,000/- per kilogramme,” said Mr Rugaimukamu.
Clonal coffee yields three times more coffee and is resistant to the CWD. The word ‘clonal’ means that the coffee plants have been multiplied asexually from a single parent plant or clone. Kagera farmers produce robusta coffee, which constitutes 30 per cent of the total coffee production in the country.
Coffee is grown in Bukoba, Muleba, Karagwe, Kyerwa, Ngara and Missenyi districts in the western areas along Lake Victoria. This constitutes about 30 per cent of the total coffee production in Tanzania. Mr Rugaimukamu also announced that coffee farmers would be paid an increase of 3,100/- for a kilogram of organic coffee up from 3,000/-, while a kilogram of cherry robusta will be paid 1,300/- up from 1,200/-.
KCU comprised about 134 Agricultural and Marketing Cooperative Societies (AMCOS) with 45,000 members. Out of the number 53 were in Muleba District, 27 in Missenyi, 51 in Bukoba Rural, while three others are in Bukoba Urban,” he said.
During the past three years, coffee production in the region increased from 52,000 metric tons during 2018/19 season to 78,300 metric tons during 2020/2021 season, enabling the farmers to pocket about 96.4bn/-
