As part of the activities to celebrate 10 years of existence, The National Coffee Research Institute (NaCORI) organized a National Coffee Research Symposium held at Hotel Africana on Tuesday 6th August 2024 with partners and various industry players to discuss valuable research partnerships that drive in coffee and cocoa industry innovations aimed at increasing the average household incomes and improve the quality of life of Ugandans.
The Researchers have called for strengthened partnerships with Farmers and industry players to drive innovation.
The theme of the symposium is: “Building Connections-Aligning Coffee Research with Industry Needs”
NaCORI, one of the public agricultural institutions under The National Agricultural Research Organization (NARO) guidelines, is mandated to conduct all basic, applied, and strategic research on Coffee and Cocoa crops.
During the symposium, the Director of research at NaCORI, Dr Geoffrey Arinaitwe called for strengthening partnerships with various players in the sub-sector to enable addressing of the challenges and discuss how to grow the sector with the private players, which he said will go a long way in improving the incomes and livelihoods of Ugandans.
“We can’t work alone; we need to work and connect with people in the private sector. If you don’t connect you won’t innovate. Better scientists solve community challenges” he said
Dr. Geofrey said there is a need to develop technologies with farmers on adopting research products and technology transfer through existing structures such as farmer organizations to deal with the farmers' challenges.
“We are developing technologies with farmers in different regions such as Mbarara, Shema, and others, through farmer organizations like unions, and cooperative societies to support farmers. Conducting market research and intelligence to inform research to better understand the market is essential in the production of coffee bi-products” he said
Dr Fred Kawuma, Coffee African Ambassador and chairperson of Café Africa on a virtual message from Brazil said that the symposium acknowledged that coffee has a global significance to the culture, society, economy, and environment, highlighting the rise in coffee consumption.
He said that for the country to realize improved consumption and production, there is a need to innovate ways to promote it including coffee tourists, and experimental marking that he says will enhance brig farmer consumer linkages.
“We need to promote coffee tourism to build a strong relationship between farmers and consumers. Experimental marketing will also boost domestic consumption and demand for coffee products. The Gen Zs will use social media to publish events and the health benefits of coffee” he said.
In “The Golden Bean” publication that NaCORI launched indicated that the institute has technology and innovations campaigns as part of the coffee research itinerary for the year 2023/2024, with a focus on coffee research designed to increase average household incomes and improve the quality of life of Ugandans.
According to Dr. Geoffrey Arinaitwe NaCORI, he said that they are enhancing coffee farmers’ incomes through the provision and promotion of the use of appropriate technologies and innovations through addressing bottlenecks aimed at increasing productivity along the value chain.
“As part of our coffee research agenda, we have developed innovations that support the ND-PIII’s agro-industrialization agenda on value-addition. Some of our coffee product prototypes that are suited for the cosmetics industry are been taken on by private sector players for scaling out” he said
NaCORI was established in 2014 and is located in Mukono Katosi road; they will celebrate 10 years on 8th August 2024.
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