Uganda is known within the region as a country that is blessed with plenty and a wide variety of food. Food varieties are as many as tribes, ranging from maize, beans, banana, cassava, sweet potatoes, millet, sorghum, rice, field peas, cow peas, pigeon peas, groundnuts, sim sim, soya bean, Irish potatoes to mention but a few.
Many tourists travel to enjoy the wide basket of food types that Uganda offers, hence boosting food tourism. Travellers on Uganda Safaris have continuously recommended the foods in Uganda.[1] Nonetheless, Uganda also faces high levels of food loss and waste (FLW) along critical value chains. This is perpetuating food insecurity and compromising trade competitiveness. FLW refers to the decrease in the quantity (weight/volume) and quality (nutritional value) of food due to actions of actors in the food value chain.
The issue!
Food losses and wastages arise mainly due to poor post-harvest handling practices and through the absence of adequate and appropriate food infrastructure in harvest and post-harvest systems. For example, during the preparation stages (poor drying leading to high moisture content) storage, transportation and processing.
Moreover, the majority of the farmers still use rudimentary methods like drying on uncovered ground, storage in sacks or pouring on ground, hand shelling or beating. Drying and storing on ground makes agricultural produce become susceptible to discolouration, and contamination with foreign matters, termite damage, mould and debris.
Storage in inappropriate materials (non-hermetic bags) like bags/sacks makes the stored produce vulnerable to storage pests (like rodents, weevils, termites), contamination by mould and aflatoxin, and insect frass.
FLW is also caused by the wrong usage of agro-inputs and wrong inputs (pesticides, herbicides, acaricides) during production and storage, and poor processing equipment like grain milling machines that leave particles in the processed flour.
This is exacerbated by poor food storage infrastructure and cold transportation facilities. At the moment, there is no government public storage facility. There are only eight warehouses country-wide provided by the private sector but these are located within the city and major towns and have a storage capacity of only 32,000 MT which is only 0.8% of the total production. This implies that rural residents who are the major producers have no access to storage facilities.
Known impacts of FLW range from economic losses through lower tradable volumes, decreased income of small farmers, increased poverty levels and higher prevalence of food insecurity. We explore some below.
Opportunity cost of poor-post-harvest handling
Perpetual food insecurity and high food prices: For instance, an estimated 30% – 50% of the annual grain and fresh fruits and vegetables harvest (in terms of weight) is lost (FAO, 2019). A loss of this magnitude affects producers directly by reducing the amount of food available for household consumption and amount available for sale to obtain household income. On the consumer side, such a loss reduces food supplies in the markets causing food prices to increase, consequently making food unaffordable.
Compromises health of Ugandans: In terms of quality, food poisoning and/or contamination (due to aflatoxins, microbial pathogens, agrochemical and veterinary drug residues) is a common phenomenon in Uganda’s food products. Studies by Partnership for Aflatoxin Control in Africa (PACA) in 2017 revealed that Uganda’s maize, sorghum and groundnuts contained aflatoxin levels exceeding the national maximum limit.
As a result, Uganda’s food products are considered unsafe for human consumption, a factor that explains the low competitiveness of Uganda’s food products and the surge of foodborne illnesses. In 2016 alone, Uganda’s Ministry of Health report shows that about 1.3 million people, constituting 14% of treated cases, were diagnosed with food-borne diseases.
Reduces trade competitiveness and undermines credibility: Concerning trade competitiveness, Uganda has experienced scenarios where some food products have been rejected or barred from accessing some foreign markets due to safety concerns. A recent example is the ban on Uganda’s maize starting March 2021 by Kenya due to the high levels of aflatoxins.
The ban resulted into a decline in maize exports from 94,382 MT in January-March 2021 quarter to 2,765 MT by close of 2021 (Figure 1), representing a 97.1 percent reduction. Kenya being the destination for 90% of Uganda’s maize export, such a ban costs Uganda about $121m (UGX 447b) in annual revenue.[2] In addition, the effects of such a ban trickle down to the smallholder producers as it affects demand and hence prices for their commodities leading to loss of household income.
Despite having access to international markets like the African Growth and Opportunity (AGOA) and EU’s Everything But Arms (EBA), penetration to these markets has been minimal due, in part, to quality related issues, hence compromising credibility. As a result, most of Uganda’s food products are consumed domestically due to non-compliance with the food safety requirements of international markets (Jeffer et al., 2021)[3].
Foods which manage to cross borders do not go beyond the East African Community region (EPRC, 2018). The implication of food export bans and the failure to access foreign lucrative markets translates to low profitability of agriculture and loss of foreign exchange earnings which constrains poverty eradication and economic growth.
Most of the aforementioned opportunity costs arise due to weak enforcement of food standards (by Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS)) in terms of regulatory capacity, coverage, staffing capacity and facilitation to do market surveillance and inspection.
This is aggravated by the limited awareness of the food supply value chain actors about food standards. For instance, a study conducted by FAO, WFP and IFPAD in 2019 found that farmers had no awareness of or regards for standards as set by UNBS. Another notable finding is that some farmers are aware but act dishonestly by adulterating their produce to obtain more profits and the existing laws do not provide for deterrent penalties for such behaviours.
What needs to be done!
In light of the above, eradicating poverty and food insecurity hinges on reducing food losses and waste. This will necessitate improving post-harvest handling (PHH) practices which are the main drivers of FLW. Specifically;
- Farmers need to be trained in good PHH practices, which will require strengthening the agricultural extension role. Farmers need to be sensitized on how to dry and store their produce, and also using appropriate processing technologies (like grain millers) that do not compromise quality.
- Government also needs to augment the efforts of development partners and the private sector by providing post-harvest infrastructure (like warehouses), hermetic storage equipment to households.
- Government needs to strengthen the enforcement of standards and increasing capacity to test foods. UNBS could make use of extension workers to monitor farmers during drying and storage practices. In addition, UNBS could offer a certificate of meeting standards to village-based aggregators since these can easily monitor PHH practices of farmers and can control supply of quality produce to the market.
Footnotes
[1] https://www.primeugandasafaris.com/blog/the-food-of-uganda-a-rich-tourism-potential-uganda-safari-news.html
[2] https://allafrica.com/stories/202103080611.html
[3] Jeffer, S.B.; Kassem, I.I.; Kharroubi, S.A.; Abebe, G.K (2021). Analysis of Food Safety Management Systems in the Beef Meat Processing and Distribution Chain in Uganda. Foods, 10, 2244. https://doi.org/ 10.3390/foods10102244
About authors:
Medard Kakuru is a research analyst at EPRC
Tiffany Akurut is an intern in the micro department at EPRC