News and Analysis • Volume 8 • Number 14 • 25th July 2008

Ugandan Coffee Crop and Trade Earnings Threatened by Climate Change

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Climate change is a real threat to the future of Uganda’s main cash crop and source of export earnings, coffee, claims a new report.

British charity Oxfam released the report, which details the effects climate change is having on agriculture, water, health and poverty in Uganda. Entitled “Turning up the Heat, Climate Change and Poverty in Uganda,” the report claims that recent changes in weather conditions could, if they persist, have a drastic effect on the country’s coffee production.

Uganda is currently Africa’s second largest coffee producer after Ethiopia, but its coffee crops would face severe destruction or could completely disappear if average global temperatures were to rise by more than 2 degrees Celsius. This change could become reality in as soon as 30-40 years. The coffee crops rely heavily on Uganda’s two rainy seasons, which have become more erratic, more intensive, and have caused an increasing amount of damage through floods, landslides and erosion. Droughts that affect the western, northern and north-eastern districts are also becoming more frequent. If the weather conditions remain as unpredictable as they recently have become, effects are likely to worsen.

Farmers are doing their best to adapt to the situation, favouring those varieties of coffee bean most likely to survive the dryness. Export earnings have not suffered as of yet - on the contrary, they have continued to increase. Nevertheless, Oxfam has called on industrialised nations to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. The report goes on to stress that the right strategies to adapt to climate change will also serve to promote truly sustainable development and the reduction of poverty if properly implemented.

“Ugandan Coffee May Disappear in 30 Years-Oxfam”, REUTERS, 18 July 2008; “Climate Change Bleaks Uganda Coffee Harvest”, AFROL NEWS, 18 July 2008; Ugandan Coffee Could Soon Disappear”, DAILY MONITOR, 22 July 2008; “Climate Change Poses Threat to Uganda’s Coffee Sector”, AFRICA NEWS NETWORK, 20 July 2008.