Project Overview
CATALIST-Uganda
CATALIST-Uganda
Overview IFDC will utilize the successes and lessons learned from the CATALIST agricultural intensification project in Central Africa’s Great Lakes Region to help improve Uganda’s agricultural sector. The four-year CATALISTUganda project is funded by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs through the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and began on July 1, 2012. The mainstay of the Ugandan economy, agriculture provides about 20 percent of the gross domestic product, 85 percent of export earnings, 73 percent of employment and the bulk of raw materials used by the industrial sector. Despite more than a decade of positive political, economic and social change, 65 percent of the population continues to earn less than $2 per day. Over 90 percent of the poor reside in rural areas, where smallholder subsistence farmers produce about 70 percent of the country’s marketed produce. Uganda is also challenged by one of the world’s highest population growth rates (more than 3.2 percent annually). Although agriculture is critical to the national economy, overall yields have not increased over the past decade and are far below their potential. Use of organic and inorganic fertilizers is low, resulting in soil degradation. The majority of small farm households lack the means or incentive to invest in their farms, skills in commercialized production technologies and links to output markets to sell surplus production. As a result, farmers remain trapped in a poverty cycle – few are able to adopt better agricultural practices and rudimentary mechanization and suffer from low yields and incomes, high costs per crop unit, small marketable surpluses and the use of agricultural practices that ‘mine’ nutrients from their
soils. Additionally, Uganda’s agro-input and output markets are marked by high transactional costs and poor integration. Consequently, improved agricultural practices tailored to small farms and marketing channels offer the best opportunities to spur economic growth for the millions of rural households in the country.
Achieving Greater Productivity Despite these problems, Uganda has the potential to become a food-exporting country because of its favorable climate and its central position in a foodinsecure region. Achieving this potential will require substantial increases in productivity per land unit. Smallholder farmers can increase productivity through better access to agro-inputs (fertilizers, improved seeds and crop protection products) and access to markets to sell their surplus produce. To achieve agricultural intensification these smallholder farmers must be integrated into effective agribusiness clusters through which they can aggregate and sell surplus crops. The resulting economic improvements are also necessary to create non-farm employment for the growing rural population. CATALIST-Uganda will help increase involved farmers’ productivity and more effectively link them to input and output markets by improving value chains. Value chains link the numerous steps that a commodity takes from the farmer to the ultimate consumer. While the project will focus on a few key commodities, it will promote a systems approach to anchor these commodities into crop rotations and (where possible) integrate them with livestock systems. The project also will seek to maximize farm income and sustain/improve soil nutrient levels and organic matter content.
The CATALIST Approach The goal of CATALIST-Uganda is to sustainably commercialize smallholder agriculture through improved productivity and market development. Having established markets means that anticipated production increases are unlikely to cause lower prices. Taking advantage of the existing modest surplus production and nascent rural business linkages, the project will accelerate agribusiness cluster development, while also introducing commercially and environmentally sustainable farming systems. The project will be built on a market-driven approach, developing farming systems (push) and competitive value chains (pull) that will lead to increased marketable surpluses. To reduce production and transaction costs in the supported value chains, CATALIST-Uganda will introduce technical and institutional innovations to increase profitability. Through the project, IFDC will focus on building and strengthening the capacities of partners such as farmer organizations, agro-dealers, agribusinesses and business service providers to ensure institutional sustainability. CATALIST-Uganda targets farmers that have sufficient land area to generate marketable surpluses, have productive assets, can accept a certain level of risk and can access markets. The project will focus initially on four crops with established national and regional markets – Irish potatoes, lowland rice, cassava and sunflowers. Potato and rice yields are particularly low relative to their potential, so productivity increases and resultant decreases in production costs can be obtained with increased use of agro-inputs and good crop husbandry. While cassava is traditionally cultivated as a food security crop, large commercial markets have been identified. With better production and postharvest processing techniques, cassava can be very profitable. The sunflower oil and seed value chains are already well-developed; a relatively small investment in commercialized production practices could greatly improve profitability for farmers and help reverse soil degradation. Legumes (groundnuts, soybeans, beans and pigeon peas) are complementary rotational crops and can contribute to farmers’ incomes. Moreover, a balanced mix of commodities and markets reduces the risks of reliance on a narrow commodity income base.
Adapting IFDC Innovations to Benefit Uganda
IFDC will help develop markets using its Competitive Agricultural Systems and Enterprises (CASE) approach. As part of CASE, the Commercialized Sustainable Farming System (CSFS) seeks to optimize profits from crops (and potentially livestock), while simultaneously sustaining/improving soil health. This is accomplished by maximizing synergies between agro-inputs, cropping sequences (rotations/intercrops) and livestock (if present). Together, CASE and CSFS ensure that crop
surpluses are both commercially and environmentally sustainable, and that the resulting production systems are embedded in a network of business relationships that add value not only directly to the farmers, but to the wider rural and national economies as well. A related CASE component is Integrated Soil Fertility Management (ISFM), a key to increasing agricultural productivity while protecting the environment and maintaining (or even enhancing) the soil resource base. ISFM strategies focus on the combined use of mineral fertilizers and locally available organic amendments (crop residues, compost, animal waste and green manure) to replenish lost soil nutrients and improve both soil quality and the efficiency of agroinputs and water. CSFS and ISFM maximize agricultural management choices (e.g., soil organic matter management, tillage practices, leaching and erosion control) in an environmentally sustainable manner. Gender will be a particular project focus; CATALISTUganda will promote equitable access to resources and economic returns and shared household decisionmaking. In addition, the project’s emphasis on improved post-harvest handling, storage and market linkage through a matching investment fund and credit guarantees will increase farmers’ financial options. With links to agro-dealers, processors, business service providers and market information systems, farmers can take advantage of new and expanding markets, a strong motivator to produce a surplus. An innovation grant fund (to spur new options for input and output market development) and a public works component (to generate rural employment through the development of infrastructure that enhances productivity and market access) will support project interventions. As part of project strategy, medium- to large-scale farmers in target areas may serve as ‘nucleus’ farmers. However, all farmers (including those not targeted) will benefit from the public works component, which can assist in asset accumulation. Also, CATALISTUganda will reverse low fertilizer use by working with agro-dealers, extension services and financial institutions to enable farmers to access appropriate fertilizers. In summary, by the end of CATALIST-Uganda, 100,000 smallholder farmers will have doubled yields, achieved a 50 percent increase in incomes and produced annual marketable surpluses of 200,000 metric tons. These surpluses will contribute to increased rural incomes and trade in Uganda and increased regional food security.
UGANDA
Uganda at a glance
CATALIST-Uganda c/o IFDC Ground Floor, Studio House, Plot 5 Bandali Rise, Bugolobi P.O. Box 75391 KAMPALA, UGANDA E-mail: ifdcuganda@ifdc.org
Location: East Africa, west of Kenya Total Land Area: 241,038 sq km Comparable Area: Slightly smaller than the U.S. state of Oregon and/or the United Kingdom Cultivated land: 21.57 percent Climate: Tropical, generally rainy with two dry seasons Population: 32,369,558
IFDC East and Southern Africa Division CATALIST-Uganda Coordinating Office c/o icipe Duduville Campus, Kasarani Thika Road P.O. Box 30772-00100 Nairobi, KENYA Telephone: +254 20 863 2720 E-mail: ifdckenya@ifdc.org
Agricultural Products: beef, cassava, coffee, cotton, cut flowers, goat meat, tea, maize, milk , millet, potatoes, poultry, pulses and tobacco Per Capita Income: U.S. $420 Miles of Paved Roads: Uganda - 16,272 km (10,111 miles) Oregon - 107,668 km (66,902 miles) United Kingdom - 394,428 km (245,086 miles)
IFDC Headquarters P.O. Box 2040 Muscle Shoals, AL 35662 USA Telephone: +1(256) 381-6600 Fax: +1(256) 381-7408 Website: www.ifdc.org E-mail: general@ifdc.org To learn more about IFDC and its projects, or to download a selection of publications, please visit the IFDC website at www.ifdc.org Š IFDC 2013. All rights reserved.