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Tips About Good Agriculture In Uganda

What if I tell you that agriculture in Uganda takes 81% of the employed labor force, and 31% of export earnings are derived from the agricultural sector? On this page we will guide you hand in hand.

• Agriculture in Uganda is the back borne of Ugandan economy. Agricultural exports in Uganda include coffee, cotton, tea to mention but a fee.

• Uganda's economy is predominantly agrarian; can you imagine 36% of the GDP of the government of Uganda comes from agriculture?

• What if I tell you that agriculture in Uganda takes 81% of the employed labor force, and 31% of export earnings are derived from the agricultural sector? Its clear a total of 6,810,000 ha (16,828,000 acres), or one-third of the land area in Uganda, is under cultivation.

• Subsistence production remains the pattern; 70% of the area under cultivation is used to produce locally consumed food crops like bananas, maize onions tomatoes, peas and many other food crops you have ever thought.

• Women provide over half of agricultural labor, traditionally focusing on food rather than cash crop production. The monetary value of market crops is exceeded by the estimated value of subsistence agriculture.

• Plantains, cassava, sweet potatoes, and bananas are the major food crops. In 2009, food production estimates included plantains, 9.4 million tons; cassava, 3.4 million tons; sweet potatoes, 2.5 million tons; bananas, 600,000 tons; millet, 638,000 tons; corn, 780,000 tons; sorghum, 454,000 tons; beans, 220,000 tons; and potatoes, 449,000 tons.

• Although coffee is still the primary export earner for Uganda, with receipts in 2007 at $51.3 million, 11% of total exports. Production of robusta, which was cultivated by the Baganda people before the arrival of the Arabs and British, and some Arabica varieties of coffee provides the most important single source of income for more than one million Ugandan farmers and is the principal earner of foreign exchange.

Export crop production reached a peak in 1969. Estimated production of major cash crops in 2005 included coffee, 198,000 tons; cotton (lint), 15,000 tons; tea, 26,000 tons; raw sugar, 125,000 tons; and tobacco, 7,000 tons. Roses and carnations are grown for export to Europe.

• In conclusion therefore, without agriculture in Uganda, the economy would be in shambles and the majority of people will be jobless as it employs more than 40% of the total population of Uganda. The only problem Uganda faces is to process these agricultural products because most of them are exported in a raw form which means that less value and less income.