During the 2025 Harvest Money Expo, it was clear that maize remains one of Uganda’s most important staple crops, providing food security for millions and serving as a key cash crop for farmers across the country.
There were many exhibitors who showcased solutions to maize herbs and pests in addition to seeds.
However, one of the biggest challenges maize farmers face is weed infestation, which significantly reduces yields and increases production costs.
According to the agriculture ministry, maize is the most important cereal crop in Uganda, providing over 40% of the calories consumed in both rural and urban areas.
Farmers rely on maize for food, fodder and as a cash crop.
Small scale farmers, who constitute the bulk (80%) of the rural poor, also account for the largest share of maize production.
Maize is grown in every part of the country and it is a direct source of livelihood to over two million households, over 5,000 traders/merchants and over 600 millers. Increasingly, maize has become a major non-traditional export cash crop, particularly benefi ting smallholder farmers.
In 2023, maize production in Uganda increased to about 5.5 million tonnes from about 286,000 tonnes in 1980.
Challenges in production
Low productivity is one of the biggests challenges facing Uganda’s maize industry. Low maize productivity is linked to human, technical and socio-economic factors.
In the dominant smallholder sector, low productivity is attributed to a virtual absence of improved maize varieties, use of unimproved agronomic and post-harvest technologies; high cost of inputs such as fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides.
Common pests include
Insects pests such as fall armyworm, stem borers, maize weevils and cutworms. These pests attack at different stages of the crop cycle — from seedling to storage — causing significant yield losses.
Fall armyworms and stem borers feed on leaves and stems, while cutworms damage young plants at the base. In storage, maize weevils infest grains, reducing both quality and market value if not properly managed.
These can be controlled with the insecticides such as dudu fenos, striker as well as organic remedies like nimbecidine, extracted from neem.
Rodents
Although rodents are generally considered pests of stored grains, they are also pests of maize in the fi elds. They will also damage grains in storage. Rodents can be controlled by planting 3-4 plants per hill and thinning to 2 seedlings in the third week to avoid reduction in stand. Where possible, maintain clean surroundings by weeding or slashing around the field
Monkeys
Monkeys will destroy the maize mainly after tasselling equally when the cobs are already formed.
Birds
Birds can dig out seeds from the ground before they germinate thereby reducing the plant stand. They also feed on the grains as soon as the grain filling stage begins.
This reduces yields but perhaps, even more important, their damage opens avenues for pathogens leading to reduced quality.
Birds can be controlled by scaring them away. This is limited due to lack of sufficient labour to do that. Use of scarecrows and other locally improvised noise devices stationed at different points of the field reduces damage.
How weeds impact maize production
For decades, weeds have been a major headache for maize farmers. Many rely on manual weeding, which is labour-intensive, time-consuming and expensive. Others use herbicides, but existing options often fail to offer long-term and comprehensive weed control.
Left unmanaged, weeds can cause yield losses of up to 50%, severely impacting farmers’ earnings. To tackle this challenge, Bukoola Chemical Industries Ltd exhibited several solutions against weeds at the expo.
“We are also set to launch metrazin gold, a game-changing selective maize herbicide, in the second quarter of 2025,” Solomon Seruwo, the marketing and business development manager at Bukoola Chemical Industries Limited, said.
He added that metrazin gold will be formulated with two active ingredients that work together to eliminate weeds more effectively than ever before.
Seruwo says unlike conventional herbicides, metrazin gold has been designed to provide longer-lasting weed control, giving maize crops the best possible growing conditions.
