Uganda expects coffee exports to drop 4 percent to 250,000 60-kg bags in August compared with the same period a year ago due to low rains, a source at the Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA) said on Friday. Africa's second-largest coffee producer also revised its 2009/10 (October-September) crop projection to 2.7 million bags from about 2.8 million bags previously, the source said.
"The toll of last year's drought is becoming far greater than we originally thought and we've had to review our projections for the sector," the UCDA source said. Uganda exported 266,000 bags of coffee in July. The east African country was Africa's leading exporter of the beans for the June-May 2009/10 period, shipping 2.27 million 60-kg bags, followed by Ethiopia, which exported 2.24 million bags, according to statistics from the London-based International Coffee Organisation (ICO). Earnings from the beans are a major source of Uganda's foreign exchange inflows. The country primarily cultivates the robusta variety.