Written By | Staff Writer
As robusta prices ease, the kingdom's Situla Omutindo programme bets that what farmers control, quality, matters most.
Search
Agriculture
When prices were high, Uganda's coffee story was told in superlatives. With farm-gate prices now softer, a different question is being asked: what can a farmer control? The Buganda Kingdom's answer, repeated in sub-county meetings from the Buvuma Islands to Mityana, is quality. On 27 September, local and central government leaders visited coffee communities in Ssabagabo Ssekanyonyi Gombolola in Ssingo County, Mityana District, to push better garden practices under the kingdom's "Situla Omutindo" (Raise the Standard) programme, Nile Post reported. The visit was small, but it sits at the centre of a decade-long experiment in whether a cultural institution can organise millions of smallholders more effectively than many ministries.
This feature looks at what Situla Omutindo is, what it has inherited from the earlier "Emmwanyi Terimba" campaign, and whether quality-first messaging can protect farmers when the market turns.
From Emmwanyi Terimba to Situla Omutindo
Emmwanyi Terimba, roughly "coffee, plant it", was the kingdom's campaign to get households to plant coffee on a commercial scale. On 10 February 2026, at a farm in Bukwaya Village on the Buvuma Islands, Katikkiro Charles Peter Mayiga announced that the decade-old campaign would be widened into Situla Omutindo. "The time has come for the 'Ommwanyi Terimba' initiative to be expanded and integrated with other areas," he said. The new umbrella has six focus areas: coffee and agriculture, trade and business, health, education, family welfare and talent development. Residents were asked to "take up at least one area, work on it professionally, and maintain high standards".
Coffee remains the entry point. On 19 May, in Kyesiiga Sub-county, Masaka District, seedlings were handed to hundreds of farmers with training in spacing, mulching, pest control and pruning, according to allAfrica. A representative of former Vice President Edward Kiwanuka Ssekandi urged farmers: "Do not sell them. If you do, you will lose the opportunity to fight household poverty." Local officials said demand for seedlings was continuing and that farmers were asking for fertiliser and pesticides as well. In Kalangala, the Monitor reported in June that Ssese CBS PEWOSA had registered more than 102 farmers and distributed over 20,000 seedlings in Mugoye and Bujumba sub-counties, as fishing households looked to coffee. Robinson Kizza, chairperson of the Ssese Coffee Farmers Cooperative Society, said prices had risen quickly to about Shs14,000 in 2025, against Shs8,000 to 10,000 per kilogramme for fish.
Why quality, and why now
The campaign's shift from planting to quality reflects the market. The Ministry of Agriculture's statement of 20 September, authored by Minister Frank Tumwebaze, put robusta farm-gate prices (FAQ) at Shs11,500 to 12,000 per kilogramme in the first half of September 2026, against Shs13,500 to 14,000 a year earlier, a fall of roughly 14.5 percent. July exports were 846,376 60kg bags, down 15.1 percent on July 2025, and earnings fell 18.6 percent to US$204.1 million. Prices of that kind do not reflect anything farmers did wrong, but they put a premium on the things farmers can influence: harvesting only ripe cherry, drying on tarpaulins rather than bare ground, storing dry and avoiding mixing.
Quality already matters to Uganda's reputation. Food Business Africa reported that at the 10th International Competition for Originally Roasted Coffees in Paris, Team Uganda won three gold medals, one silver, three bronze and eight gourmet awards. Sam Mugabi, chairperson of the Ankole Coffee Farmers Union, credited regulatory oversight for the improvement. Medals for specialty lots do not lift the price of ordinary robusta, but they help build the case that Ugandan coffee can command a premium beyond the commodity price.
At the garden level, what Mityana farmers described this week was more basic. According to Nile Post, they named pest infestations, excessive heat and limited access to fertiliser as the main problems, and leaders told them quality "starts from the garden" and to consult extension workers rather than rely only on traditional methods. They were urged to use well-decomposed organic matter, practise proper pest management and maintain soil fertility. Those instructions match a year in which drought stressed trees across the coffee belt.
The kingdom as value-chain player
Buganda's campaign does not stop at advice. Food Business Africa reported the kingdom's plan for Mwanyi Terimba Limited, a company to be based at Nakisunga in Mukono District with a green-coffee processing plant and a roasting facility. The report put Uganda's annual output at six to seven million 60-kg bags, with Buganda contributing more than a quarter. If the processing plant works, it would let the kingdom capture margin that currently goes to exporters and traders. The Independent separately reported that the company had begun buying farmers' coffee.
Youth are also a target. The Buganda Youth Council visited the National Coffee Research Institute at Nasuuti in Kyaggwe, and Minister Robert Sserwanga Ssalongo told participants that coffee offers opportunities at every stage, from seedlings to the final product. The delegation also visited cocoa gardens and a NUCAFE Africa processing facility, according to Nile Post. Participants said the visits made them consider starting coffee businesses.
Limits and open questions
A campaign built on exhortation has limits. Farmers in Mityana asked for fertiliser and extension help, not slogans, and the kingdom has no authority over input supply or extension services, which sit with the state. The functions of the Uganda Coffee Development Authority are, according to Food Business Africa, transitioning to the Ministry of Agriculture over three years, a change that creates uncertainty about who will enforce quality standards in the interim. Quality premiums also depend on buyers who pay them; if traders pay the same price for dried and poorly dried coffee, growers will keep selling early. Early picking by farmers who need cash has been a persistent issue, and district authorities in Mubende have in the past threatened crackdowns on it.
There is also the matter of evidence. The Situla Omutindo materials reviewed for this article report activities and endorsements but no published figures on how much average quality, premiums or farmer incomes have changed. That makes it difficult to say whether the campaign is working beyond anecdote.
What to watch
Three things will show whether this model delivers. First, whether Mwanyi Terimba Limited publishes what it pays farmers compared with local traders. Second, whether the 2026/27 harvest sees higher shares of properly dried, ripe-picked coffee in Buganda. Third, whether the kingdom's inputs and training are matched by state fertiliser and extension. For smallholders in Ssingo and elsewhere, the message is simple: when the market sets the price, the one lever left is the quality of what you sell. Whether cultural leadership can turn that message into better incomes remains to be proven, but in a soft market it is worth watching.
