Uganda Smallholders Grapple With EU Regulations On Coffee Farms – CoffeeTalk

In Kubewo village in eastern Uganda, children often work with their parents in coffee gardens to pay for their education and other expenses. The Global Fund to End Child Modern Slavery’s 2022 report found that the overall prevalence of child labour in the coffee supply chain was 48 percent, with 51% among boys and 42% among girls. Boys, more than girls, participated in more physically demanding activities such as spraying, pruning, carrying, and loading and offloading coffee. A key driver of child labour was systemic poverty.

New European Union regulations, such as the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, require companies operating in the EU to consider child labour as a critical adverse impact that has to be addressed if it happens in a coffee value chain. Uganda is one of the coffee-producing countries taking steps to comply with the European Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), which will outlaw sales of products such as coffee beginning on December 30, 2024, if the coffee is linked to deforestation. The country recently reviewed its coffee laws to provide for the registration and regulation of coffee value chain actors, enabling the ‘last-mile tracing’ of coffee farmers.

The EU has given Uganda a 40 million euro (USD 43 million) grant to help Africa’s largest coffee exporter comply with the new EU policy that bars imports of commodities whose production resulted from forest destruction. Gerald Kyalo, Director of Development Services at the Uganda Coffee Development Authority, said that child labour in the coffee sector is complex, as labour takes maybe 50% of inputs in terms of funds. There is a thin line between child labour and what people call training their children, and sensitization can help address this issue.

George Namatati, a 74-year-old peasant coffee farmer, is worried that the old systems of growing coffee using family child labour are about to collapse. He told IPS that the government would fine and jail farmers found working with children in coffee gardens.

Mathias Nabutele, chairperson and founder of the Coffee a Cup Cooperative Society, has suggested that the EUDR will change the conversation about coffee farming by encouraging farmers to explore alternative markets for coffee. He believes that under the new conditions, farmers need to explore alternative markets and understand their requirements, as EU member countries are destinations for over 60% of the coffee produced in Uganda. However, farmer Namatati believes that the EU should rethink some of its policies that keep pushing down the throats of coffee farmers, as more young people are moving away from coffee farming.

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) defines child labourers as those entering the labor market or taking on too much work and too many duties at too early an age, which affects a child’s access to education and play. Rosalind Kainyah, advisor and speaker on sustainability and responsible business in Africa, writes that the EU’s impending regulations on forced labour, which include child labour, could place some African businesses that export to the EU in a sticky mix of law, culture, and human rights.

Some experts have indicated that household poverty and economic vulnerability are some of the underlying root causes of child labour in coffee value chains all over the world. Kenneth Barigye, the Chief Executive Officer of Mountain Harvest Uganda, suggests the need to sensitize the farmers to protect their children. The average age of a farmer in Uganda is about 63, and chances are that this old man or woman is living with grandchildren whose parents moved to town but, because of unemployment, sent the kids home.

Kenneth Barigye also suggests that a farmer should be running a profitable business for them to generate enough money to take care of their family. At the launch of the “Ending Child Labour in Supply Chains (CLEAR Supply Chains)” project in June this year, Wouter Cools, Project Manager Ending Child Labour in Supply Chains for the ILO, said an integrated approach to addressing child labour in supply chains was needed, involving multiple stakeholders, including UN agencies like United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), civil society, governments, and the private sector.

While human rights groups welcome the EU directive, small-scale coffee farmers fear they are about to suffer due to the vagaries of global trade. Pison Kukundakwe, a coffee farmer cooperative representative, told IPS that there is a need to change from the current system that dictates that coffee farmers are price takers and not determinants.

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