African leaders endorse inaugural Africa Coffee Festival amid push for agricultural transformation 

AFRICA – Heads of State across Africa, led by African Union First Vice Chairperson and President of Angola, João Lourenço, have officially endorsed the first-ever Africa Coffee Festival, set to take place from October 10 to 12, 2025, in Ntungamo, Uganda. 

Themed “Africa Renaissance: Chapter One Coffee,” the festival was unveiled during the African Union Extraordinary Summit on the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP) in Kampala.  

The summit, held from January 9 to 11, 2025, culminated in the adoption of the Kampala Declaration and the launch of a transformative 10-year strategy to reshape Africa’s agricultural and food systems. 

The Kampala Declaration outlines a roadmap to boost agri-food production, reduce post-harvest losses, and attract significant investments into the agricultural sector.  

African leaders highlighted the need for collective efforts to implement the strategy to achieve sustainable development and food security across the continent. 

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni called for the commercialization of agriculture, emphasizing value addition as a pathway to prosperity.  

He urged households to adopt agricultural enterprises suited to their land sizes, aligning with the CAADP strategy’s broader objectives of addressing hunger and poverty. 

The CAADP strategy for 2026-2035 aims to increase agricultural output by 45 percent by 2035, cut post-harvest losses by half, and attract public and private investments worth US$100 billion.  

Governments, private sector stakeholders, and civil society organizations have been urged to collaborate to meet these ambitious goals. 

The Africa Coffee Festival’s launch comes at a critical time for the coffee industry, with the European Union’s Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) set for implementation.  

The regulation requires coffee and other products sold in European markets to be traceable and produced without contributing to deforestation after 2020. 

The European Commission has introduced the EUDR Information System, where due diligence statements must be submitted to verify compliance with the regulation. These statements, which have legal significance, will cover products entering the market after the EUDR’s application date. 

The Africa Coffee Festival will serve as a platform to showcase the continent’s coffee production potential and address the challenges posed by evolving international regulations. 

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