Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry, and Fisheries Prioritizes Agro-Industrialization to Boost Agricultural Production and Value-Addition
According to the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS), agriculture contributed roughly 24.1% of the country’s GDP and 33% of its export revenue in the most recent fiscal year. As government strives to turn agriculture into a viable commercial sector for farmers, one of the key agendas is to transform agricultural raw materials into higher-value products through Agro-industrialization.
The Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry, and fisheries (MAAIF) is committed to prioritizing the Agro-industrialization program in order to increase the current production and productivity, quality and quantity of volumes of agricultural products as well as boosting efforts to ensure that the products are handled properly to avoid contamination.
These are some of the interventions implemented by the government of Uganda through the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry, and fisheries to promote Ago-industrialization;
Agricultural production and productivity, the objective is to increase agricultural production and productivity. These include setting up new and rehabilitating existing infrastructure for administration and agricultural research.
Developing and extending to value chain actors the demanded agricultural technologies for animal breeding, food and nutrition security and industry & Retooling public and private extension workers.
Availing quality critical inputs to farming households, setting up new and rehabilitating existing infrastructure for water for production & Controlling crop and animal pests, vectors and diseases.
Post-Harvest Handling and Storage, the objective of this sub-programme is to improve post-harvest handling and storage of agricultural products.
Supporting cooperative societies, communities with cleaning, drying, grading and primary processing equipment & developing the capacity of cooperatives, communities, farmers and traders in post-harvest handling and storage.
Agro-processing and Value Addition, the objective is to increase processing and value addition of agricultural products.
Revising existing industrial pollution guidelines, Construction/equipping of planned tea factories, supporting dairy cooperatives and farmers with value addition equipment & rehabilitating the absorbent cotton processing plant.
Market Access and Competitiveness, the objective of the sub-programme is to improve access to agricultural markets and increased competitiveness of agricultural products.
Training farmers and manufacturers on best Sanitary and Phytosanitary management practices, equipping regional milk testing laboratories & constructing/renovating and equipping certification laboratories.
Agricultural financing: The objective of the sub-programme is to increase the mobilization, equitable access and utilization of agricultural finance. This is the capitalization of Uganda Development Bank and Microfinance Support Centre by Government.
