This is a best prospect industry sector for Ugandan investors.  

Overview

Investors consider Uganda’s agricultural potential to be among the best in Africa, with low temperature variability, fertile soils, and two rainy seasons over much of the country – leading to multiple crop harvests per year.  According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, Uganda’s fertile agricultural land has the potential to feed 200 million people.  Eighty percent of Uganda’s land is arable but only 35% is being cultivated.  In FY 2021/22, agriculture accounted for about 24.1% of GDP, and 33% of export earnings.  The UBOS estimates that about 70% of Uganda’s working population is employed in agriculture.  Uganda produces a wide range of agricultural products including: coffee, tea, Miaze, Banana, sugar, livestock, fish, edible oils, cotton, tobacco, plantains, corn, beans, cassava, sweet potatoes, millet, sorghum, and groundnuts.  Commercialization of the sector is impeded by farmers’ limited use of fertilizer and quality seeds, and a lack of irrigation infrastructure – rendering production vulnerable to climatic extremes and pest infestations.  Sector growth is also impaired by the lack of quality packaging capabilities, insufficient storage facilities, poor post-harvest handling practices, shortage of agricultural credit, high freight costs, the lack of all-weather feeder roads in rural areas, a complicated, and limited knowledge of modern production practices.  Ugandan producers often find it difficult to meet sanitary and phytosanitary standards required to export goods to Europe and the United States. 

Opportunities

There are significant investment opportunities in Uganda’s agriculture sector, including in production, input supply, value addition processing, standards compliance and export, and post-harvest handling.  In the coffee sector, there is space to increase coffee production and the amount of coffee exported to the United States.  Uganda is Africa’s leading coffee exporter and second largest producer but sends just 5.7% of its exports to the United States.  The Uganda Coffee Development Authority reported total exports of 6.75 million, 60-kilo bags valued at $719 million in 2021, up from 548 million 60-kilo bags valued at $520 million in 2020.  The government has developed an ambitious, yet detailed, plan to increase its current production of 402,000 tons of coffee to 1.2 million tons annually by 2025. 

In the tea sub-sector, Uganda produced at least 110,000 tons of tea in 2021. At least 5% of the total production is consumed in the domestic market. Most of Uganda’s tea is exported through the Export Auction System that takes place in Mombasa, Kenya. The value of tea exports is $85 million, mostly semi-processed.  Tea farmers and exporters rarely export directly to the United States although there is interest to make direct sales.