A section of farmers growing pineapples for commercial purposes in Luweero District are uncertain about the future of the crop owing to the low prices. 

The farmers under their umbrella body, the Luweero Pineapple Farmers and Traders Association, say the price at which they sell the pineapple has failed to boost productivity yet the middlemen and final consumers enjoy the proceeds.

Mr Richard Ssebandeke, a farmer in Nabigoza Village, Butuntumula Sub-county, Luweero District, attributes the low prices to the lack of a processing plant.

“We are cheated through unfair prices by the middlemen and at the peak of the harvest season because of the lack of the value addition chain, pineapples will go to waste and rot if you fail to quickly sell them at prices offered by the buyers,” he says.

“We are now selling the pineapples between Shs700 and Shs1,200 for a piece that is later sold at Shs3,000 by the traders, “ Mr Ssebandeke adds.

Mr Abdul Mpiima, a farmer who has grown pineapples since 2013 in Nabigoza Village, Butuntumula Sub-county, believes that they would be wealthy if the crop had a value addition plan to boost the prices.

“It is true that we earn some money from the pineapples, but the farmer remains poor because of failure to realise the maximum profits. We panic as the harvest season nears because the pineapple crop is perishable. You have to find the market in less than two days,” he says

Mr Samuel Kayongo, another farmer, calls for a processing plant to add value to the pineapple crop.

“The pineapple produced in Luweero is sweet and admired but the price offered to the farmer is very discouraging. The only opportunity to redeem the farmer is to have a process plant for value addition. The traders and middlemen that cheat the farmer will be forced to dance to the tunes of the farmers,” he says.

Mr Kayongo says petitions have been made to both the Agriculture Ministry and President Museveni about the need to have a fruit processing plant in Luweero in vain.

The pineapple farmers rent the land, hire casual workers, and apply fertilizers as input but they said these are not recoverable.

Ms Enid Nabakooza, a farmer in Luweero Sub-county, owns 17 acres of the pineapple crop and employs four casual workers at her farm.

But part of her challenge as a farmer is the failure by government to establish a fruit processing plant.

“We cannot fight to have fair prices without an alternative market area such as a processing plant. We have heard about a processing plant that was recently commissioned by President Museveni in Nakasongola District, but the pineapple farmers were not part of the new plant,” she says.

“We were never involved yet we have been told that the factory will process mangoes and pineapples,” she added.

The pineapple, according to Luweero District chairperson Erasto Kibirango remains Luweero’s prized crop sustaining several households both directly and indirectly.

He said the district has played its part in advocating for a fruit processing plant in vain.

“I personally appealed to the President of Uganda in 2023 about the need to have a fruit processing plant to add value to the pineapple crop. We are still following up with the different government departments because value addition for the pineapple crop would help farmers earn fair prices,” he said.

background

Between March and May, farmers grow between 10 and 100 acres of pineapples from the sub-counties of Butuntumula, Luweero, Kikyusa, Kamira, Katikamu and Zirobwe.

Food and beverage processors outside Luweero now process and export the dried pineapple fruit to foreign markets. The farmers in Luweero want to join the beverage processing chain for value addition.

A pineapple farmer earns an average of Shs18m and Shs35m from a single acre of the pineapple crop. The farmers say the profits are not what the average farmer would earn in cases where the crop goes through the value chain addition.