In coffee-producing Uganda, an emerging sisterhood wants more women involved

By Rodney Muhumuza

Meridah Nandudu envisioned a coffee sisterhood in Uganda, and the strategy for expanding it was simple: Pay a higher price per kilogram when a female grower took the beans to a collection point.

It worked. More and more men who typically made the deliveries allowed their wives to go instead.

Nandudu’s business group now includes more than 600 women, up from dozens in 2022. That’s about 75% of her Bayaaya Specialty Coffee’s pool of registered farmers in this mountainous area of eastern Uganda that produces prized arabica beans and sells to exporters.

“Women have been so discouraged by coffee in a way that, when you look at (the) coffee value chain, women do the donkey work,” Nandudu said. But when the coffee is ready for selling, men step in to claim the proceeds.

Her goal is to reverse that trend in a community where coffee production is not