The Economic Policy Research Centre (EPRC) has completed field work for a study investigating the major constraints and investment opportunities for improving agricultural production and productivity in the country.
The study covers five selected commodity value chains: maize, millet, cassava, goats, and coffee.
The Centre interacted with extension workers, input dealers and district agriculture teams were asked to identify and rank the most pressing investment gaps to agricultural transformation across eight (8) investment priority areas including; breed, fertiliser, mechanisation, irrigation, extension, research and development, roads and electrification.
The field work, conducted between April 3 and14, 2022, focused on one commodity per district in five districts identified through a policy prioritization analysis. These included Kibaale for Goats, Soroti for Millet, Lira for Cassava, Serere for Maize, and Masaka for Coffee.
Coffee is one of the commodities researchers investigated in Masaka district
Data collected will be used to justify and provide recommendations regarding the most pressing investment needs for each commodity-district pair.
The study is being conducted as part of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Multidisciplinary Fund (MDF) project to strengthen governments’ capacity for enabling an economic and social recovery post COVID-19 through investment in agri-food sectors.