Uganda exported 737,766 bags of coffee in August 2026, 13.6% fewer than in August 2025, according to the monthly coffee report for August 2026 posted on the Uganda Coffee Development Authority's website. The report puts the value of those shipments at $181.7 million, down 10.3% on the same month a year earlier. The report shows volumes in 60-kilogram bags, so the August 2026 figure comes to roughly 44,000 metric tons of green coffee, which is the unroasted seed that roasters buy.
The money fell less than the volume because each kilogram sold for more. The report gives the average export price for August 2026 as $4.1 a kilogram, and Uganda Business News reported on 1 October that this was 3.7% above the August 2025 price. Uganda Business News, which attributes the report to the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries, gave the August 2025 comparison as 853,543 bags worth $202.6 million.
How much of the drop was robusta?
Almost all of it. Uganda is mainly a robusta country, and Uganda Business News reported that robusta made up 92.3% of August 2026 volume. The August 2026 report shows 680,945 bags of robusta worth $161.1 million, down 14.2% in volume and 10.4% in value from August 2025. It shows arabica shipments of 56,821 bags worth $20.66 million, down 5.2% in volume and 9.4% in value. Arabica and robusta are different species of coffee plant.
Italy remained the largest buyer in August 2026 with 25.2% of shipments, according to the report, followed by Sudan at 15.2%, Germany at 9.9%, India at 5.7% and Belgium at 5.1%. Uganda Business News reported that Italy's share was down from 29.3% in July.
Did drought cause the decline?
The August report itself does not give a reason for the lower volume, Uganda Business News reported, although it noted that a section of the report on farmer training mentions dry conditions. The weather explanation comes from the government's minister. Frank Tumwebaze, Uganda's Minister of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries, said in a statement in September that Uganda faced domestic supply problems after a prolonged drought and unusually high temperatures in several coffee-growing areas, as reported by the Ghana News Agency on 22 September. The agency reported that he linked the weather to effects on flowering, cherry development, bean filling, and processing yields and quality.
Uganda Business News reported that Tumwebaze's statement, dated 20 September, named parts of Greater Masaka, Kyotera, Sembabule and Luwero, and estimated that the weather had contributed to an out-turn about 10% below the normal average in affected areas. That estimate covers the affected districts, not the whole country, and it is the minister's assessment rather than a measured national figure.
The decline did not start in August. The Ghana News Agency reported on 22 September that Uganda exported 846,376 bags worth $204.1 million in July 2026, against 997,105 bags worth $250.7 million in July 2025.
Is this a downturn or a return to normal?
The International Coffee Organization offered a different reading in its Coffee Market Report for August 2026. The ICO reported that Uganda shipped a record 8.26 million bags in the 2024/25 coffee year, against an average of 6.22 million over the four years before it and a previous high of 6.5 million in 2020/21. In the ICO's analysis, that record was supported by higher production and by stocks released while international prices were high. The report concluded that the recent year-on-year decline in Uganda "may be better interpreted as a normalization from an exceptionally high benchmark rather than as evidence of a broader downturn." On the ICO's figures, the record year was about a third larger than the four-year average.
Over the 12 months to August 2026, Uganda exported 8.1 million bags worth $2.1 billion, according to the August report, a rise of 1.6% in volume and a fall of 5.2% in value against the previous 12 months. The report attributed the pressure on prices to increased supply from Brazil and Vietnam. Tumwebaze made the same point in September, the Ghana News Agency reported, saying world prices had come under downward pressure as supply rose from those two countries.
What did farmers in Uganda get paid?
The August 2026 report shows average farm-gate prices of 5,750 Uganda shillings a kilogram for kiboko, which is dried robusta cherry, and 12,000 shillings for FAQ, or fair average quality, which is hulled robusta. The report shows arabica parchment at 15,500 shillings and drugar, a natural-process arabica, at 14,750. At the Bank of Uganda's August 2026 average exchange rate of 3,730.3 shillings to the dollar, which Uganda Business News reported, 12,000 shillings is about $3.20.
What comes next for Uganda's exports?
The report projects September 2026 exports of about 700,000 bags. Uganda Business News reported that this would be about 17% below the 839,801 bags shipped in September 2025, and that the ministry said the main harvest in Greater Masaka and the south-west had ended. That projection is a forecast, and the September report will show whether it held. In August 2026, Uganda Business News reported, actual shipments came in 13.2% short of the ministry's projection of about 850,000 bags.
For the price backdrop, the ICO reported that its composite indicator price averaged 287.29 US cents a pound in August 2026, effectively unchanged from July. Our report on Vietnam's 2026 exports covers the robusta supply the Ugandan report points to, our report on September's price decline covers the futures market since, and our explainer on robusta covers the species itself.
- Uganda exported 737,766 bags worth $181.7 million in August 2026, down 13.6% and 10.3%, according to the August 2026 monthly coffee report.
- Robusta exports were 680,945 bags in August 2026, down 14.2%, according to the same report.
- Uganda exported 846,376 bags in July 2026, against 997,105 in July 2025, the Ghana News Agency reported on 22 September 2026.
- Uganda shipped a record 8.26 million bags in the 2024/25 coffee year, the ICO reported in its August 2026 Coffee Market Report.
- The report projects exports of about 700,000 bags for September 2026, Uganda Business News reported on 1 October 2026.
Photograph: Michael Starkie, Unsplash.
