Uganda signs coffee deal with Turkish buyer as exports surge

Turkey’s coffee appetite is becoming a concrete export lane for Uganda, not just a market on the wish list. In May 2026, Uganda’s Ministry of Agriculture signed a strategic agreement with Kafe Kavil, a Turkish specialty coffee company, linking the country’s trade push to a named buyer as Turkish imports climbed from $232 million in 2021 to $909 million in 2025. Ugandan coffee shipments to Turkey also leapt, from about 2,304 bags in 2024 to about 15,037 bags in 2025.

The deal matters because it ties policy, diplomacy and commercial demand together. Uganda’s embassy in Ankara has been staging market activation events to build awareness for Ugandan coffee, with ambassador Nusura Tiperu fronting some of the outreach. That gives exporters a more direct route into a country that is becoming one of the region’s fastest-growing coffee markets, while Kafe Kavil gives Uganda a specific buyer and a clearer path to distribution. If demand holds, the first people to gain are likely to be farmers, exporters and processors moving washed robusta and single-origin arabica into a specialty channel that rewards consistency and origin story as much as volume.

Uganda is still a small player in Turkey’s import mix. Brazil remains Turkey’s dominant supplier, accounting for more than 60 percent of imported coffee by value in one report, so the Ugandan push is not about displacing the market leader overnight. It is about diversification, and about proving that an origin better known for scale can win a place in a market that is building out branded café culture and asking for more traceable lots.

The broader stakes are larger than one buyer. Uganda now produces about 9.3 million 60-kilogram bags a year and is targeting more than 20 million bags by 2030, while its Coffee Roadmap also calls for export earnings of $1.5 billion to $2.2 billion by that date. The sector already supports about 1.8 million households and brought in more than $1 billion in export earnings in 2023/24. With Uganda also reported to have overtaken Ethiopia as Africa’s largest coffee producer, the Turkey deal looks less like symbolism and more like a new lane that could help carry the next wave of export growth.