Teso coffee push: a new Robusta frontier opens in eastern Uganda
By Sandra Nansbuga
Teso coffee push: a new Robusta frontier opens in eastern Uganda
Roughly 500 farmers in Uganda's Teso sub-region have attended a coffee establishment training and each is expected to receive 100 coffee seedlings, in a push to open eastern Uganda as a coffee-growing area. That matters to buyers because Teso's soils were long judged unsuitable for coffee, so the agronomy taught at the training, hole size, spacing, manure and drainage, will decide whether the region's cherry ever reaches export grade.
The Cooperator News reported on 9 October 2026 that the call came at a coffee establishment training attended by about 500 farmers. Grace Apolot, a regional coffee trainer under the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries, said farmers should take advantage of the region's suitability for Robusta coffee and establish gardens using proper agronomic practices. She advised spacing of three metres by three metres and planting holes of two feet by two feet, with topsoil separated from subsoil and mixed with at least one basin of manure per hole before refilling. She cautioned against planting in swampy areas, saying excessive water could affect seedling growth, and urged farmers not to be discouraged by the belief that they had started too late, saying those with fruit trees could plant coffee alongside them instead of cutting down the trees.
Abraham Ariko, director of agriculture at the Iteso Cultural Union, said the initiative aims to help farmers adopt coffee as an additional income-generating activity. Each district is to receive 5,000 seedlings for 50 farmers, except Katakwi district. He said Teso has faced a big challenge of irrigation schemes, with plans to lobby government while farmers improvise. The union's Prime Minister, Andrew Ocole, cautioned farmers against taking seedlings if they were not prepared to manage them, saying they would be monitored.
The training sits inside a wider campaign. The Kamwokya Times reported on 28 June 2026 that more than 80 million coffee, cocoa and banana seedlings were rolled out for farmers across the 12 districts and cities of Teso, aligned to the 2017 coffee roadmap target of 20 million 60-kilogram bags a year by 2030. Ugandan Robusta already dominates national exports: UCDA's monthly report for May 2026 records 617,491 60-kilogram bags exported that month, of which 517,825 were Robusta.
What this means for buyers
There is no Teso offer to price yet. What The Cooperator News describes is establishment: training, seedlings and monitoring, not a certified consignment. Buyers should treat eastern Uganda as a pipeline origin, not near-term tender coverage.
Pipeline origins raise a cover question: unproven weather, pest and handling risk sit on the cargo, which our cargo insurance note addresses.
What decides whether it becomes a supply line is supervision after hand-out. The union attached monitoring to distribution, and that condition is the part to track: ask aggregators for evidence of garden management and planting material source, not planting numbers.
UCDA's May 2026 report also records farm-gate Robusta kiboko at UGX 5,250 a kilogram and FAQ at UGX 11,250, the reference points for a new robusta area.
Disease pressure is the other variable. Coffee wilt disease affects robusta coffee in Uganda, as a Plantwise Knowledge Bank factsheet from the Uganda Coffee Research Institute sets out; field-level control is covered in our note on coffee wilt disease in Uganda. Irrigation, which Ariko flagged as Teso's big challenge, still rests on a plan to lobby government.
FAQ
Q: Is Teso producing exportable Robusta yet?
A: No. The activity reported by The Cooperator News on 9 October 2026 is training and seedling distribution: about 500 farmers each expected to receive 100 seedlings, and each district due 5,000 seedlings for 50 farmers except Katakwi. No export consignment from the sub-region is described.
Q: What planting standard did the Teso training set?
A: MAAIF regional coffee trainer Grace Apolot advised spacing of three metres by three metres, planting holes of two feet by two feet, topsoil separated from subsoil and mixed with at least one basin of manure per hole, and no planting in swampy areas.
Q: How large is Robusta in Uganda's export basket?
A: It dominates by volume. UCDA's May 2026 monthly report records 517,825 bags of Robusta among the 617,491 60-kilogram bags exported that month, against 99,666 bags of Arabica.
Sources: The Cooperator News | Kamwokya Times | UCDA | Plantwise Knowledge Bank