Uganda bets on agro-industry with US$20 billion export target to power economic turnaround
Government sets a US$20 billion agro-industrial export target as the Parish Revolving Fund and a new Shs 176 billion farmer facility reshape the country's agricultural value chain.
Uganda’s government is doubling down on agro-industrialisation as the centrepiece of its ambitious Tenfold Growth Strategy, with the Permanent Secretary and Secretary to the Treasury (PSST), Ramathan Ggoobi, outlining a sweeping set of targets this week that would transform the country’s export footprint and reshape how agriculture connects to manufacturing.
Speaking at a high-level engagement with private sector stakeholders convened to explore off-take opportunities for grain commodities; Ggoobi said government is targeting a dramatic rise in exports, from their current 12 per cent of GDP to 50 per cent, a shift he described as foundational to the strategy’s success.
Central to the plan is lifting the export value of agro-industrial products to US$20 billion, while simultaneously increasing manufacturing’s share of exports from 16 per cent to 20 per cent.
Government also aims to double the proportion of medium and high-technology products in manufactured exports, from 21 per cent to 50 per cent, a target that signals a deliberate pivot up the value chain.
Ggoobi acknowledged that achieving these ambitions requires a reliable pipeline of raw materials. “Government is working towards establishing a mechanism for adequate production and supply of raw materials to sustain manufacturing in the country,” he said, pointing to the need for deeper coordination between the agricultural and industrial sectors.
A significant enabler of that pipeline is the Parish Development Model’s Parish Revolving Fund (PRF), which has disbursed Shs 3.78 trillion to 3.7 million beneficiaries as of April 2026.
Beneficiaries have channelled those funds into livestock, including goats, beef cattle, dairy cattle and sheep, as well as into maize and cassava production, commodities that serve as primary raw inputs for animal feed manufacturing for both livestock and aquaculture.
On the financing side, government has partnered with the Grain Council of Uganda, Pearl Bank, Pride Bank, and Housing Finance Bank to establish a Shs 176 billion Large Scale Commercial Farmers Facility.
The scheme offers subsidised credit to large-scale commercial farmers to ramp up production of maize, beans, sorghum, and animal fodder, crops that underpin the raw material supply for agro-processors and manufacturers downstream.
Analysts have noted that the linkage between the PRF’s grassroots reach and the commercial farmers facility’s scale ambition could, if well coordinated, create a two-tier supply architecture, smallholders aggregating primary produce and large commercial operations providing consistent industrial-grade volumes. The success of both tiers ultimately hinges on functional off-take arrangements, which the stakeholder meeting this week was designed to catalyse.
Uganda’s agro-processing sector has historically been constrained by inconsistent raw material supply and limited access to working capital, issues the new facilities aim to directly address.
If the targets set under the Tenfold Growth Strategy are met, Uganda could position itself as a significant regional exporter of value-added agro-industrial goods, a shift that would mark a structural break from decades of dependence on primary commodity exports.
