ANALYING THE SHIFT OF
AGRIBUSINESS MODEL IN UGANDA
~Uganda Project on International Agribusiness Initiative
Provides A Case Study on Why Integration of ICT
Applications in Agribusiness is Important to Enhance
Productivity and Standards of Agro-products~
Lubega Ronald
Mitomo Zemi
May 05, 2013
Approach

This paper discusses why it is advantageous to integrate ICT in
agriculture? To justify reasons for this shift and compare farmers
who are using ICT to those who are not.

However we want to know "Who is better off?”

Find out what information needs farmers have?
Uganda Project on International Agribusiness
(With Mothers’ Agribusiness Support Initiative)
Project Overview

What is the project about?
UPIA is a an agribusiness project started by Waseda students by growing
maize/corn on 4 hectares of land in 2012 as a pilot project. Early 2013
expanded to 6 hectares of land and started dairy production:40 heifers,
poultry:20,000 birds, and pork pork production: 200 pigs. Today, UPIA has
created community based farmers networks working with 20 farmers by using
ICT tools like radio, mobile phones, computer for data keeping and buys and
distributes small scale farmers’ produce. Recently as result from the impact it
has had on these communities it was selected by Millennium Promise Japan a
Japanese NGO which also operates in Uganda as a one of Agribusiness
Model/ pilot project in Uganda with a grant of 50,000 USD.

The goal of this project was act as platform and inspire and motivate the
youth, women and men about the potential opportunities in agriculture and
how they can also take advantage of the existing technology to create an
impact in their communities.

The scope of this project
The Compact Concept: To Promote Forward and Backward Linkages through
agribusiness diversification and sustainability.
Uganda Project on International
Agribusiness

Study Objectives
1. Identify key useful result on how to increase quality and quantity of agro-products
2. Analyzing data on impact of empowering and organizing farmers’ structures on community
base: Planting, Harvesting, Collection, Value addition, Marketing to help them increase
productivity and income while meeting the required standards.
3.To share the success story of Uganda Project on International Agribusiness for future research

Purpose of this study:
Explaining logically Why, How, What questions by examining importance and effectiveness of
ICT integration in agribusiness can add on Uganda socio-economically as farmers struggle to
improve productivity and efficiency.

Goal
This project will introduce new opportunities in integrating ICTs in agribusiness and discuss
what kind of challenges farmers face, and benefits from working collectively with small scale
farmers through providing them with quality seeds, training them on good practices that can
enable increase their productivity and income to over poverty.
Thesis Structure Contents
Table of Contents
Abbreviations
Summary
Chapter Five, Discussion
Chapter One, Introduction
Chapter Six, Conclusion
Brief background, research
questions,
problems, consequences
related to the
topic.
Identify critical conclusions about
the results: Lessons learned and their
implications
Chapter Two, Literature
Review
data
identify relevant & significant research
related to the topic.
Chapter Three, Methodology
Qualitative Analysis, using primary &
secondary collected in form of
observations,
and experiments from
UPIA pilot project case study.
Chapter Four, Results
Presents findings from data collection
process, variables, & measurements in
relation to research questions.
Discuss results from Ch.4, to show
the r/ship of the study findings, and
limitations
Make recommendations for future
areas of research
Style Format
Summary
Resources (Bibliography)
Common Obstacles and Practical
Solutions
Reflections/ Discussion Questions
Try it Exercise
Key Terms
Web Links
A Broader Context
General Problem & consequences related to the topic
With a robust growing ICT Sector in Uganda especially in Telecom, and
Communication and Information industry, the integration of information
and communication technologies (ICTs) in agriculture is increasingly
important (FAO, WSIS 2002-2005). Agribusiness is emerging field
focusing on the enhancement of agriculture through ICT processes. More
specifically, Agribusiness involves the conceptualization, design,
development, evaluation and application of innovative ways to utilize ICT
tools and application systems.
Supply chains and value addition are the major phases of agribusiness
opposed to former from farm to market cycle. The latter involves a
sequence of crop cultivation, water management, fertilizer application,
fustigation, pests and weds management, harvesting, post-harvesting
handling, transportation of products, marketing; processing, preservation
and packaging, storage and, quality management, and finally safety
standards checks.
However, all stake holders of agribusiness need perfect information and
knowledge about these phases and means to utilize them efficiently to
meet the required standards while increasing return on investment.
Although Uganda’s Vision 2040 seeks to transforming Uganda
into middle class population through social and economic
infrastructure construct, and promotion of industrialization and
sustainability to boost the country’s GNP in next three decades,
however, according to Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and
Animal Husbandry (2012) “Agriculture is still the most single
largest sector and significant component of Uganda’s economy,
and it contributes 60 % to national GDP, and absorbs over 66.6%
of labor force. Bodies, 80% of the total population of over 34m,
of which 24.5% live under the poverty line (World Bank data,
2011). However, National Farmers Federation (NFF), the Coffee
Development Authority (CDA), and progrommes like National
Agricultural Advisory Services (NAADS) were put in place to
aid farmers in order to streamline and commercialize agricultural
sector. Despite, the existence of these institutions policies and
initiatives implementations, productivity, are still behind and
most farmers are still on small scale struggling living a
substandard life due to depending mainly on subsistence model
of production food household food and sell the surplus.
Identified & Observed Issues Affecting
Small-scaled Farmers
From farm to market
 Poor quality produce and
fluctuations in total yields
 High post-harvest losses
 Imperfect information
 Lack of entrepreneurial skills to
market farm produce
 Poor infrastructure
 Limited number of farmers
associations/ cooperative
Types of Technologies that Could be
Used
 Wireless technologies: closed
door circuit TV camera, mobile
phone customized text system
 Computer controlled devices such
as Automatic milking system
 Knowledge and Information
management system
 RFID (Radio Frequency Identification,
Denoting technologies that use radio
waves to identify people or objects
carrying encoded
microchips).Wagenignen, 2008
Purpose of the Study
1.
To test agribusiness theory in order to determine its
usefulness in solving practical problems, methods and
analyze and interpret the data (results) each chapter will
discuss briefly.
2.
The paper aims at presenting a qualitative research analysis
mainly using data will be used to support all arguments
based on facts and figures in a very non-biased way to show
why this proposal is a necessity for the agribusiness for
Uganda’s development in future.
3.
To Identify information needs and ICT tools for farmers.
Proposed Research Questions
1.
What are the major problems hindering the harshening of
ICT integration in agribusiness in Uganda?
2.
Why the integration of ICT applications in agribusiness is
important?
3.
How best these applications can be leveraged to achieve
sustainable supply chains and value addition effect in
agribusiness industry?
Hypothesizes
 Integration of ICT applications causes a synergy
agribusiness.
 ICT tools are effective in increasing efficiency.
 Using ICT reduces global warming.
effect on
References
FAO (The Food and Agriculture Organization), 2002.C.7 ICT
Applications on E-Agriculture
Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Animal Husbandry 2012.
Wageningen, 2008. EU-Project Automation Milking.
UPIA (Uganda project on International Agribusiness), 2011. Pilot
project.
World Bank data, 2011.The World Development Indicators.
WSIS 2003,2005 (The World Summit on Information Societies), in
Geneva.
Time for Questions & Comments!