By George Bukenya
As Agricultural producers in Uganda cry foul play every time price fluctuations for their products occurs they out to put in mind the idea of value addition as advocated the government.
Value addition can properly help eliminate the challenge of loss that result from this agricultural economic challenge of fluctuation in prices as well as increase on incomes of individuals and the community.
Simple technology can help increase value on some agricultural products like coffee, maize, sim-sim and a few others so as to help farmers earn big and constant income levels.
Wangoola Ndawula a resident of Nakabango village, Jinja District narrates how he manages to add value on coffee using simple technology.
He says he got the innovation idea of pounding roast coffee to produce coffee powder after coming back to Uganda in early 1990’s but wondered where to get the market from for his product.
Since 1976, Ndawula has been able to stay in countries like Kenya and Canada having gone to there as an asylum seeker due to the civil wars that plunged the country for several years.
He came back in 1999 and started to think of how he could survive in Kampala after facing it rough he decided to go and stay in Jinja and in 2014 he tried agriculture as an income generating activity growing several food crops.
He also ventured in coffee farming growing Arabic coffee variety and just after three years he got his first harvest and when he sold it he realized that his income could even improve more if he had added value on his raw coffee.
Ndawula says his family was using coffee as their beverage and they used to pound roasted coffee beans manually using the simple mortar made locally grind and get coffee powder which had a nice aroma.
This motivated him to also start roast coffee beans manually and put grind it in the locally made mortar to make powder pack it and begin selling to the neighbors and to the nearest make shift markets as well as supplying to the shops.
He says the coffee powder got through using locally made mortars has a very nice aroma which is the other factor that encouraged him to start such business.
How He does the value addition
After picking coffee from his garden, he dries them properly manually and puts them in a simple machine that removes the husks and selects the best beans for roasting.
He again puts the selected beans into sunshine for proper drying after which he roasts them using fire wood in the manual process.
Ndawula then grind them when still hot using his mortars to produce powder which he parks ready for market.
He says the challenge faced is the small market and little capital that hinders him from making good packaging that can attract big supper market dealers and exporters.
He also lacks a motor vehicle that can ease transportation and accessing the different markets, he is also still using manual family labour something that limits the expansion of his business.