By Prossy Nandudu
James Kanyije is a fresh produce exporter to the EU markets. He has been in the business for more than 10 years. To stay in the market, Kanyije said he has been paying attention to the quality and standards of goods meant for export. This means investing in quality parameters in relation to foods for export, starting from the farm. At the farm, he said one should pay attention to seed quality, agro chemicals to be applied and withdraw periods to allow agro chemicals to dissolve from the vegetables before export.
He adds that one has to pay attention to the harvesting period, so as to harvest the recommended size and quality. For example, sweet potatoes are harvested when younger for easy packaging. This also applies to bananas to prevent them from ripening before getting to the final destination.
Exporters must also pay attention to pre-harvest and spraying intervals, to ensure that what is exported has no chemical residues or insects like moths. To meet the said standards, Kanyije called for investment into infrastructure that facilitates export trade. These include testing laboratories, cold chain facilities and fridges that can preserve produce as soon as it is harvested to cool off the high temperatures and maintain quality.
According to exporters, fresh produce destined for the EU are tested by only one accredited laboratory that charges between $150 to $300 per sample. Each sample weighs about 100gs. To go through, each sample is tested twice, which is an added cost, added Kanyije.
He, however, says that although some exporters have been able to meet the standards, many have not. This is likely to reduce Uganda’s exports to EU markets.
One of the reasons for not meeting the standards is the lack of capital, to invest in the facilities. “About 90% of all fresh produce exporters lack capital to invest in infrastructure such as cold storage and testing of produce to check for agro chemical residues. To construct a cold storage room with a capacity of 300 tons one has to part with sh105m,” Kanyije explained.
He adds that last year alone, Uganda earned between $24 to 40m from fresh produce destined for the EU market; and yet EU has set aside $72b to pay for agriculture imports globally while UK has set aside 42b pounds for the same. As exporters struggled to meet the standard, Uganda lost $100m in intercepts (which are goods that are rejected due to various issues when they get to the EU borders), last year.
Other challenges in exports to EU markets, according to the executive director of the Uganda Export Promotions Board (UEPB), Elly Twineyo, are that most exporters are informal, hence failing to comply with market requirements.
Areas where SME’s are failing to adjust, according to UEPB, include adherence to minimum health standards, safety and phytosanitary requirements; such as minimum chemical residue levels for pesticides and presence of harmful organisms.
The other challenge is the cost of freight to target markets in the EU, which are more than 25% compared to exports from competing markets such as Kenya.
Status of Uganda’s exports
Despite the challenges, Twineyo says Uganda’s exports to the EU have averaged at $555m per annum for the last 10 years. In terms of growth, Uganda’s exports to the EU have been growing at an average of 3% and 7% per annum over the last 10 years. In 2022 alone, Uganda’s total merchandise exports to the EU grew by 12% from $685.28m in 2021 to $765.86m in 2022, according to Bank of Uganda. The growth in exports is as a result of the increase in coffee, cocoa, roses, sesame, vegetables, capsicums (pepper) exports over the 2018 – 2021 period.
