Helping Ugandan agriculture thrive in a changing world | FAO

South-South Cooperation (SSC) has been promoted by FAO since 1996. It is an effective means of achieving a world without hunger through the mutual sharing and exchange of key development solutions among countries of the Global South.

Unlike many other South-South Cooperation host countries, Uganda has good food security, meaning that most people have a diverse diet and enough food. However, the country will soon face huge challenges. Uganda’s population of 31 million has tripled since 1969. In addition, the country is vulnerable to climate change, with unprecedented extreme weather events such as heavy rains, heat waves, droughts and floods becoming more frequent. This will have a major impact on natural resource management, water resources, infrastructure sustainability, food security, food losses and human health, and has the potential to halt or even reverse the country’s development trajectory.

In response to this situation, since 2012, China has sent 31 collaborators to Uganda, including 7 experts and 24 technicians, to provide technical assistance to Uganda’s crop cultivation, aquaculture, horticulture, animal husbandry and agribusiness. Since their arrival in Uganda, the Chinese team has successfully transferred 25 new technologies, introduced 17 new varieties such as hybrid rice, millet and corn, and 4 agricultural equipment and tools. The new technologies and new varieties introduced by the Chinese team have achieved rapid results, improved food crops and increased farmers’ income. In particular, agribusiness has made great progress, and the project has had a direct impact on the improvement of China-Uganda agricultural trade cooperation.

Developing the future
Agriculture is integral to Uganda’s future development. It is the country’s most important export sector, accounting for nearly half of total exports. However, there are still many obstacles to increasing production, such as limited funding and investment, lack of timely and quality market information, poor agricultural practices, and limited access to quality agricultural inputs. This is why the SSC team made agribusiness a top priority.
The Ugandan Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries identified the need for agribusiness development to increase farmers’ incomes and boost agricultural exports. FAO addressed these issues through a series of micro-projects, field demonstrations and on-site training:

• Food crop production. Demonstration and comparative tests have shown that the yield of Chinese millet is three times that of local millet in Uganda, and that Chinese millet has a shorter maturity period and is more likely to avoid Uganda’s dry season. The results also show that the yield of the introduced hybrid rice varieties is much higher than that of local varieties.
• Cash crop production. Thanks to the technology transferred by FAO, the proportion of high-quality apples in the demonstration orchard (mainly used to demonstrate various agricultural technologies, with economic benefits as an additional bonus) has reached 85%. The weight of individual apples has increased and the quality has improved. In 2014, farmers signed contracts for 100,000 apple seedlings and are expected to earn more than 200 million Ugandan shillings (about 79,000 US dollars).
• aquaculture. Uganda has vast lowlands, and making full use of lowlands or wetlands to build fish ponds is a suitable way to improve aquaculture. Fish resources in Uganda’s lakes are decreasing. In response to this problem, Chinese experts conducted demonstrations in three farms and promoted rice-fish farming and fish fry hatching technology in many areas.
• Agribusiness. In cooperation with the UN FAO delegation, two Sichuan delegations visited Uganda to seek investment and business opportunities in the agricultural sector. During the first visit, the two countries reached a mutual understanding and signed the Sichuan-Uganda Agricultural Cooperation Framework Agreement. Afterwards, three Sichuan company managers visited rice and cotton producing areas.