Improving Agricultural Market Performance:
Creation and Development of Market Institutions
125
 A need to invest in greenhouse farming exists to increase availability of seasonal
commodities such as vegetables, fruits, and flowers.310 This also addresses the
challenges related to the seasonal variety in labor required for harvesting and post-
harvesting activities.
 Another promising agricultural activity concerns biofuels. 311 However, according to
the United States Trade Development Agency (USTDA), molasses or inedible crops (e.g.
oak leaf cotton, castor, and jatropha) should be converted into biofuels as opposed to
food crops (e.g. maize and cassava).
 The production of oilseed crops could also be further extended. Uganda is a net
importer of edible oils despite its considerable potential for edible oilseeds. 312 Oilseed
crops such as sesame, sunflower, palm, and soybean313 could be cultivated at a greater
scale.
 The opportunities and need for increasing production of apiculture and sericulture
also generates potential for moving to upmarket segments of these two agricultural
activities. 314 For apiculture, this could include honey processing and production of
bees wax and related products, while this could concern the production of silk textiles
for sericulture. Processing hides and skins due to the increased production of poultry,
and animal husbandry as well as processing maize (e.g. cooking oil and pasta) provide
opportunities to add more value to Uganda’s traditional commodities.
The promotion of hides is now done by the Leather Development Council but could
perhaps be intensified trough the creation of a market institution (e.g. marketing
board).315
Developing Current Market Institution(s)
In addition to creating new market institutions, there is also a need for existing institutions
which may further developed to mitigate challenges present in Uganda’s agricultural market.
In fact, creating new institutions may place a large burden on human and financial
resources,316 particularly market institutions buying surplus of supply and enforcing other
price control mechanisms. Rather, to improve the performance of the market and the selected
market institutions, existing institutions should be strengthened by focusing on value-addition
and processing, standards and quality maintenance and enforcement, control of emerging
diseases and pests, and the provision of market intelligence to reduce risks and inform farmers
about current market prices. Hence, redeveloping existing market institutions may serve an
important role in addressing current bottlenecks.
The first bottleneck concerns the absence of (enforcement of) regulations for standards and
quality of inputs (e.g. seedlings, pesticides, and fertilizers).317 Some of these inputs are
310 Government of Uganda (2017), Agriculture, available a Accessed May
2017].
311 Export.gov (2016), Uganda - Agriculture, available a Accessed
May 2017].
312 Ibid
313 Uganda Investment Authority (2017), Investment Opportunities, available at
[Accessed May 2017].
314 Government of Uganda (2017), Agriculture, available a Accessed May
2017].
315 Interview conducted with Ministry of Trade, Industry & Cooperatives in Kampala, June 7, 2017
316 Interview conducted with Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry, and Fisheries in Kampala, June 7, 2017
317 Interview conducted with Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development in Kampala, June 7, 2017