The East African country is the continent's largest exporter of the beans and heavily depends on revenues from the crop for foreign exchange.

Uganda shipped 390,677 60-kg bags in February, slightly lower than the 397,883 bags exported in the same period last year, UCDA said in its latest report.

March shipments are projected at 380,000 bags, down from 409,916 a year ago.

February shipments earned $41.6 million, compared with $48.5 million last year. A dry spell in western Uganda, one of the main growing regions, had "left some coffee trees severely affected (dried up) beyond recovery," UCDA said.

The black coffee twig borer had damaged crops in all the growing regions, with dry weather fuelling the infestation and the impact of the pest, it said.

First detected in Uganda in 1993, the twig borer makes grooves on the twigs - the small branches that bear cherries - of coffee trees and lays eggs there. It then infects the twigs with a fungus that causes the leaves and twigs to wilt and die.