The main harvest season in Uganda is about to begin!
While the team at Agri Evolve get ready to go out and buy coffee across the Rwenzoris, the weather is ideal for this time of year: cold, and too wet for anyone to be drying coffee.
Why is this important? Two reasons.
- Families will need to pay school fees in early September.
- The majority of coffee will not be mature enough to harvest for another few weeks.
If the weather were currently dry, families looking to pull together enough money for schooling would be strip harvesting their coffee trees, drying them out, then selling the crop on to traders who give cash upfront and aren’t too bothered about quality.
The problem with this is that it earns farmers less money than if they waited a little longer and selectively picked only ripe cherries. However the cool and damp weather right now is forcing everyone to delay their harvesting, which will hopefully lead to a better quality yield, and improved farmer earnings.