By Victoria Ssekitoleko
2024 was the year of coffee. For starters, towards the end of the year, coffee brought agriculture to the front pages of leading media houses and social media.
Of course, this was due to the debate about the rationalisation of the Uganda Coffee Development Authority.
Although this debate had its negative intonations, it generated a lot more interest in coffee. Luckily enough on the farms, coffee continued to lead, with yearly production rising by leaps.
Additionally, the debate about coffee meant that more people read about it and most probably a good percentage of those came to appreciate its importance.
It is not surprising that investments in coffee too are rising. Between July 2023 and July 2024, Uganda exported 6.13 million bags of 60kgs, compared to 5.76 million bags during the same period in 2022-2023.
There are more people planting coffee than before and majority are not doing it the traditional way but are adopting modern practices to ensure high productivity. This trend of ‘smart’ agriculture investors will continue through 2025.
For example, Francis Kamulegeya, a coffee farmer in Masaka, adopted a system where each coffee tree on his over 20-acre shamba is managed independently. All coffee trees are labelled with a number. Fertilisers that each tree receives are recorded.
He records harvests per tree not the total for the shamba. This eases monitoring of the development of each tree.
Kamulegeya is not alone, as hundreds of farmers are adopting modern management systems in their enterprises. For example, in dairy farming, farmers use milking machines and feeding systems; poultry farms have automated feeding systems and combine harvesters on grain farms etc.
This indicates that the transformation to the commercialisation of the agriculture sector is sweeping across the country, though still with some challenges.
Maximisation of land
Over the years, there has been increasing maximisation of land among farmers across the country. This is important because of the rising scarcity of farming land in Uganda.
According to the Uganda Bureau of Statistics, the average land holding per household in Uganda is about two acres, including space occupied by the house. This means that unless a farmer maximises, there is no land for production.
I recently visited ginger farmers in Butambala district and it is impressive the way they are maximising land usage. They use coffee husks as mulch for the ginger and after harvesting the crop, they grow bananas on the same land.
This is partly as a crop rotation measure, but also maximises land usage.
There is organised intercropping of coffee and bananas plus legumes – again purposely to maximise land usage too. This practice improves land productivity and food security.
For example, beans intercropped with coffee provide food for the family. Depending on the size of the coffee shamba, the farmer can save some for sale. Such practices will continue shaping the face of agriculture in 2025.
Adopting to climate change
A few years ago, it was difficult to find farmers using irrigation systems on their farms. Most of them depended on rainwater which falls in two seasons or one depending on the regional location of the farm.
A few years ago, irrigation stood at about 2% on farms in Uganda. However, the story is changing and will continue for the better in years to come.
On one hand, the government is promoting irrigation through several projects including small-scale irrigation schemes, on the other, many farmers have decided to invest in irrigation systems on their farms.
It does not matter whether a farmer is growing vegetables that are seasonal or coffee which is annual, constant water supply has a positive effect. By adopting irrigation, farmers are mitigating the negative effects of climate change, and this will gradually improve production and food security. I see this trend continuing in 2025.
Mechanisation still a challenge
There has been a remarkable increase in the use of machines by farmers. Mechanisation helps drive agriculture a notch or two higher. Mechanisation is a labour multiplier.
However, while farmers are procuring machines for farm work and value addition, the knowledge to manage these machines is still lacking. For example, there are mini-processing units constructed by the government countrywide.
However, many of these are white elephants because, during their operation, one of the workmen out of ignorance mishandled a component, hence affecting the entire unit. In juice processing, for example, the boiler is a very sensitive component, but it is possible to find that in an entire workforce, nobody has good knowledge of operating it.
Many tractors donated to farmers across the country are lying redundant because a shaft on the plough broke, which always happens due to poor operators.
So, as 2025 sets in, we implore authorities and, especially the Uganda Development Corporation to make sure that a system to train technicians along the agriculture mechanisation chain is started. Otherwise, all this investment will be wasted.
Poor infrastructure bad for sector
Farm produce is transported via road to get to the market. I get an opportunity to move around this country, partly during the judgement of Vision Group’s best farmers competition and I witness some of the poor roads.
In many areas, while the highway is tarmacked, the feeder roads which most farmers use, are in a sorry state.
Poor roads affect the sector in many ways. Farmers make losses because they cannot move their produce to the market in time. Prices of the produce rise because of the high cost of transporting them.
Many farmers lose interest in agriculture because of such losses. It is, therefore, important that in 2025 government prioritises working on bad feeder roads to ease the pain of the farmers.
Finance nonpriority crops too
There is an increase in government financing for ‘priority’ enterprises like coffee, dairy and poultry, among others.
However, there is no financing for the so-called non-priority crops such as ginger, garlic and vegetables, etc, yet, there are many farmers who depend on these crops. Some of the crops include tomatoes, cabbages, pawpaw, pineapples, peppers plus animals like rabbits.
Generally, the horticulture sub-sector exports about 6 million tons of produce annually, bringing in US$35m per year. For example, ginger farmers have improved their lives, and thousands of vegetable farmers are creating wealth, thanks to their work.
Tomato farmers across the vegetable belt of Wakiso and Luwero have turned into millionaires. But when it comes to financing, they face challenges. The government, for example, is not investing enough funds in research on these crops.
Yet it is only through research that production can be improved. In the banks, it is also easier to acquire a loan if a farmer is growing the priority crops compared to other crops. Financial institutions and the government should change this in 2025.
I predict that while it has been all talk about coffee, there is also a high interest in the horticulture sector which includes crops like avocado and vegetables.
Especially with avocado, particularly Hass, there are new players, who are not only growing the fruit, but also adding value to it. Some of the products processed from avocado include body oils, for example. Beyond the value addition here, the crop has also got an increasingly large export market. Avocado, therefore, is my crop of 2025.
Future lies in the taste
Ugandans above 50 still enjoy well-cooked matooke or potatoes consumed with ground nuts sauce etc. However, young people have moved on to eating processed foods.
The taste of the young generation may determine the future of the agriculture sector. Whereas the older people want fresh food, most young only care for processed or fast foods. The rise in fast food outlets plus the increasing distance between farmers and consumers has led to better storage, including refrigeration.
Refrigeration is rising because the gap between the producer who is the farmer, and the final consumer is increasing. Over the next year 2025, there is likely to be an increase in investments in storage facilities for fresh and processed foods to reduce the gap between the farmer and the consumers.
Supply of these foods will also gradually go to only those farmers who have endeavoured to register their farms. Registration is important because the modern consumer is interested in knowing the source of the food that he is consuming. So, I predict that nearly every commercial farmer will end up registering.
The writer is a former Minister of Agriculture, Food and Agriculture, country representative to various countries and chief judge of Vision Group’s Best Farmers competition.
