Western demand for organic coffee is growing fast, but the industry is being held back by wrangles over who should pay for the costly process of certifying beans, farmers and buyers were told on Wednesday.
Certification - a verification process that ensures coffee sold as organic is just that - opens doors to small but lucrative organic markets in the United States and Europe. But farmers in the developing world say it is too expensive, given a global slump in coffee prices and plummeting incomes.
Many smallholders at an organic coffee conference that started in Uganda on Wednesday said governments, exporters or roasters should carry the cost of certifying their beans.
"The prime mover should be the government," Sam Wamutu, leader of a coffee farmers' co-operative in Uganda's eastern town of Mbale, told Reuters. "It is too expensive, and farmers have not been able to save money to pay for this."
He said certification could cost more than 50 million Uganda shillings ($28,000), and was a major constraint on small scale farmers hoping to break into Western markets.
Uganda's government appears unwilling to step in and cover the cost of certification.
"The owner of the coffee should pay for certification, and that is the farmer," Henry Ngabirano, managing director of Uganda's Coffee Development Authority, told Reuters. "But it should be made affordable, and he should receive a fair price for his product so he can afford it."
About 100 farmers, exporters and roasters attended the three-day International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) conference near the capital Kampala, which is focusing on organic coffee certification and marketing issues.
Organic beans currently account for only about 1.3 percent of US coffee imports, but that could rise to 5-10 percent over the next decade, some analysts believe. One survey predicts US sales could account for as much as 15-25 percent in the next three years.