Value chains & market institutions

The Agro-Industrialisation programme groups public spending on research, inputs, irrigation, extension, agro-processing, storage and market access¹. It was allocated UGX 1,878.27 billion in FY2024/25, UGX 1,833.71 billion in FY2025/26 and UGX 2,264.72 billion in FY2026/27, about US$599 million at the end-August 2026 rate, of which UGX 1,059.91 billion from external financing²³⁴. In FY2024/25, 85.5% of the programme budget of UGX 2,231.3 billion monitored by the Ministry of Finance (excluding the agricultural financing sub-programme) was released and 70.9% of the release was spent, and the Ministry of Finance rated programme performance at 72.1%⁵. NDP IV costs the programme at UGX 32,349 billion for FY2025/26–FY2029/30⁶.

Under the rationalisation policy (RAPEX) adopted by Cabinet on 22 February 2021, Parliament passed amendment Acts in 2024 that dissolve the Uganda Coffee Development Authority, the Cotton Development Organisation, the Dairy Development Authority and NAADS and transfer their functions to MAAIF⁷⁸. The coffee amendment was assented to on 20 December 2024⁹. The Ministry of Finance found in FY2024/25 that functions and some staff had moved to MAAIF, but that coffee, cotton and dairy inspection lacked clear placement and budgets⁵. Extension now sits in MAAIF's Directorate of Agricultural Extension Services, and in June 2025 one extension worker served 1,800 farming households against a standard of one for 500¹⁰⁵.

Coffee moves from smallholders through traders, hullers and exporters. In August 2026 the regulator inspected 232 value-chain actors, including 96 buying stores and 126 hullers, and 87 exporters were active, of which the top ten handled 67% of volume³¹. Average farm-gate prices in August 2026 were UGX 12,000 per kg for Robusta FAQ and UGX 15,500 per kg for Arabica parchment³¹. The National Coffee Act of 2021 provides for a coffee auction system³².

The Warehouse Receipt System Act of 2006 established the Uganda Warehouse Receipt System Authority to license warehouses and issue negotiable warehouse receipts³³. A parliamentary committee found in April 2024 that the Authority had licensed four warehouses since 2006, and the Warehouse Receipt System (Amendment) Act 2024 transfers its functions to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Cooperatives, which runs the system as a department³⁴²⁹³⁵. No current figures on receipts issued or financed were found. The Uganda Commodity Exchange, created in 1998 and demutualised in 2015, was reported by the Uganda Development Corporation in February 2023 to have been dormant since 2017³⁶.

The Ministry of Trade had registered 29,982 cooperatives by June 2021, including 10,850 SACCOs and 10,329 agricultural marketing cooperatives³⁷. Public programmes channel credit through their own SACCOs, 10,589 PDM SACCOs and 7,148 Emyooga SACCOs¹¹³.

The IPC analysis of September 2025, which put the refugee population at 1.9 million, found 3.4 million people in crisis or worse (IPC Phase 3+) in April–July 2025, 20% of the population analysed, including 920,000 people in 13 refugee settlements, and projected 2.1 million for August 2025 – February 2026³⁸. In Karamoja about 473,000 people, 32% of the population, were in Phase 3 or worse in April–July 2026, and 352,000 are projected for August 2026 – February 2027³⁹. Karamoja had a poverty rate of 74.2% in 2023/24⁴⁰. The IPC acute malnutrition analysis of May 2022 counted 91,600 acutely malnourished children in Karamoja, with Kaabong and Moroto in the critical phase⁴¹.