Overview
Investors consider Uganda’s agricultural potential to be among the best in Africa, with low temperature variability, fertile soils, and two growing seasons in 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. Approximately 80% of Uganda’s land is arable but only 35% is being cultivated. In FY 2024/25, agriculture accounted for approximately 26.5% of GDP, and 36% of export earnings. The Uganda Bureau of Statistics estimates that 68% of Uganda’s working population is employed in agriculture. Uganda produces a wide range of agricultural products, including coffee, tea, sugar, livestock, fish, edible oils, cotton, tobacco, plantains, corn, beans, cassava, sweet potatoes, millet, sorghum, and groundnuts. Impediments to commercialization of the sector are fractured production across small shareholders, farmers’ limited use of fertilizer and quality seeds, and a lack of irrigation infrastructure, which render 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 inefficient land tenure system, and limited knowledge of modern production practices. While no law explicitly bans genetically modified organisms in Uganda, President Museveni has twice declined to sign a bio-safety bill, and the government does not allow the import of GMOs, enforced through customs authorities at points of entry. Ugandan producers often find it difficult to meet sanitary and phytosanitary standards required to export goods to Europe and the United States. Ugandan poultry, sugar, and milk products face export restrictions from Kenya. President Museveni announced a ban on the export of raw agricultural produce in April 2025 as part of the government’s efforts to increase value addition activities in country.
Opportunities
Uganda’s ambitious ten-fold growth strategy prioritizes investment in agriculture value addition to drive Uganda’s growth with a target of $1.4 billion in investment. Investment opportunities exist in Uganda’s agriculture sector, including in production, consolidation, 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 exports. Uganda is Africa’s leading coffee exporter and second largest producer but sends just 5.7% of its exports to the United States. The government developed an ambitious, detailed plan to increase coffee production to 1.2 million tons annually by 2025. Production at the end of June 2025 reached a record high of 462,600 metric tons. Market opportunities exist for the U.S. market, including further increasing vanilla exports to the U.S., the largest market for Uganda’s vanilla.
Resources