“Perhaps we meet at a café?” I asked Bernard Bigirwa when we first started talking about a possible interview.
“Anywhere is fine. As long as it is locally owned,” he said. He is keen to support Ugandan businesses. It makes sense. He’s a Ugandan businessman, after all.
Thankfully, we end up traveling to his farm. I am three weeks earlier than coffee season so he warns me that I’m not going to witness much action. It’s still better than listening to stories about a farm one hundred miles away.
Bernard Bigirwa runs one of the largest coffee establishments in South Western Uganda. A software engineer by training, he returned to Uganda in 2004 from Australia where he had obtained his degree. Back home, he worked at Uganda Telecom for five years.
Bernard is a man of several talents (and names, apparently). We called him Bigirwa back in primary school, many of us going by surnames, for some reason. His Friday night buddies cut that down to Biggie; he’s Bernard on official documents but his family and neighbours in Bushenyi fondly refer to him as Sonny.
A true farmer, proud of his crop. It is the sense you get around him.
When a tree is doing well, he wants to show it off and painstakingly explains why this tree is not producing as much as the other one.
“We had a very good harvest on this side of the farm last season,” he says, “it wouldn’t be surprising if they didn’t flower as well this time.”
He tells me what they have been doing with the soil, to improve it. He wants me to take note of how the coffee trees seem to get more luscious as we climb up, gaining altitude. He's telling the story of the coffee wilt disease that wiped out a number of his trees some seasons back. He’s telling me of plans to plant more coffee, here, and there, and ‘…I want it to stretch until the other slope. See where that bush is? Yes. I want it to go up to that point and then up until that line.’
I’m following his finger as he points. But I’m wondering, ‘Was he always like this? When did he start to love coffee, and the earth, and this life?’
Bernard’s operation includes about 100 acres of robusta grown and wet processed at his farm as well as both Arabica and robusta purchased from outgrowers. Some of his suppliers have been selling him coffee for more than ten years now.
The farm sells green beans to exporters but has also built up direct market with some roasters in the USA.
Bigirwa roasts small batches of his coffee which he supplies to the bar and restaurant that he runs in nearby Mbarara.
We do a tour of the plant and Bernard takes me through each step of coffee wet processing.
The new machine he installed recently is one of several changes the 30-year old farm has gone through. It requires less men to work it and also consumes less power and water.
“The old machine still works and we use it when we are processing a lot of coffee.”
Jack and Bernadette
Preserving his parents’ legacy is what a lot of Bernard’s work has been about. His mother, the Late Hon. Bernadette Bigirwa served as Bushenyi District Woman MP in the 6th and 7th Parliaments.
“I get my work ethic from my father. He was a very hardworking man,” Bernard says.
Jack Bigirwa was the founding chairman of the National Union of Coffee Agribusiness and Farm Enterprises (NUCAFE). He also served on the board of Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA). His sudden death in 2004 forced Bernard to quickly take on the reins at the farm and learn all the intricate details of running a coffee processing plant in a short time. His mother had passed on a few years previously.
“You think that I am always trying new things?” He is referring to comments I’ve made about how he always seems to be thinking up new ways to improve his operations and open up more revenue streams.
“If you’d met my father; he was always trying this and trying that. He never stopped.”
The plant has grown to the point where it is one of the largest green coffee producers in Western region. Its prominence led to a visit by President Yoweri Museveni in July, 2017.
They have had their share of challenges, however. Bernard tells me of a nasty experience when he lost a significant volume of processed product because of a fault in the drying machine that had gone undetected for hours.
“It was a lesson learnt, on tightening our quality processes,” he says. “When you are dealing with such large quantities, it is important to cup the coffee at regular intervals in order to pick up on anything that may be compromising your product’s quality.”
With the uncertainties involved in agribusiness, Bernard is also keen to explore options for diversifying revenue.
I inquire about livestock farming as I’ve seen goats and cows grazing.
I know that ‘Having Cows’ is a thing in Western Uganda. You are respected and you respect yourself a little bit more when you have a herd of cattle. It’s why he is keeping cattle even though he does not seem to pay as much attention to the potential income he could make from them.
“Perhaps I will sell them off and keep only four good ones,” he says. I don’t believe him but I remain quiet.
Coffee Tourism
We talk a bit about the farm’s potential as a coffee tourism location. It is something that Bernard has thought about and is open to taking on.
The farm is located along a tourist route, with Queen Elizabeth National Park only 40 minutes away, and Kibale Forest about an hour and a half. Rubirizi district is somewhere in the middle, with its 54 crater lakes and breathtaking views along the way.
Bernard’s farm would be a perfect stopover for a day’s farm tour and perhaps an overnight stay as well.
Bernard wants to check out another coffee processing plant so we drive to Fort Portal. He has purchased coffee from them before and he’s happy with its quality so he wants to see their process and ensure that he will be able to continue to source coffee from them in the future.
We are met by Yvette who is in charge of quality control at the outfit. Yvette has a number of coffee sensory skills qualifications including a Speciality Coffee Association (SCA) certification. She has also received training in coffee processing and post-harvest handling, at Uganda Coffee Development Authority.
Bernard and Yvette share information on different aspects of their two operations.
He has found a way to put me to better use, asking me to take notes and photos for him on things he’s learning from Yvette.
“I don’t always like drying coffee in the green house,” Yvette notes. “It dries too fast and ends up being brittle.”
It’s the sort of detail you get from someone that’s looking out for any and every quality aspect of the product, and has been doing it for a long time.
She takes us around their plant, showing us the sun drying racks, their wet processing machine and explaining about some issues they’ve had to sort out, dealing with the waste material from the processor.
“You’ve got to have a quality person on the ground full time when you’re processing coffee,” he says about Yvette as we leave the plant. “It saves you a lot of problems.”
He’s got a look. Perhaps he’s figuring out how he could poach Yvette from her current employers. Who knows? I do not ask.
The Future
As he looks to the future, Bernard hopes to round off his participation in the entire coffee value chain with plans to establish a roastery in the USA.
He is aware of the initiatives calling for origin roasted coffee. He however notes that the coffee market in USA and Europe favours coffee that is consumed within hours of roasting. Roasting coffee at origin would be working against that trend.
Our journey to Kampala includes a stop for Bernard Bigirwa to water seedlings we are taking back with us. He’s planting a coffee garden in another location. More coffee? Yes.
Clearly excited about the new venture, he takes the opportunity to explain to me the importance of choosing the right planting material and ensuring that one plants at the right time.
Bernard’s passion for coffee is infectious. At this point, I am starting to wonder why I’m not a coffee farmer. I have listened to his knowledge for some days now. He has explained to me about the 360 cupping test his coffee undergoes before the exporters will receive it. He had to learn to cup coffee because it was an unavoidable skill if he was going to ensure that he bought good coffee. We’ve discussed accessing different markets around the world, and the coffee shows that he’s attended. He acknowledges that there are some weaknesses in his operations and he is constantly on the lookout for what he needs to do to plug the gaps. But, he is also excited about how far he has come and the opportunities he can take advantage of.
12 years after his father’s passing abruptly handed him the business, Bernard Bigirwa has built up his knowledge of the coffee industry, developed his structures and processes to consistently turn out a quality product and is charting out plans to keep the farm profitable and sustainable for a long time.
His father would be proud.
