The State Minister for Agriculture, Christopher Kibanzanga, has rolled up regional engagements for vanilla value chain players in Rwenzori sub-region.
The inaugural meetings and field tours are designed to further emphasize the guidelines for appropriate planting and harvesting of Vanilla to avoid reduction in profitability at farm level.
The engagements involved partners including Catholic Relief Services (CRS) which, according to Mr. Niek De Goeij, the Country Representative is supporting farming communities to improve their livelihoods and enabling farmers to meet with the right stakeholders including exporters and buyers of vanilla in such engagements.
Kibanzanga said government is committed to supporting the growth of vanilla-growing cooperatives and groups and increasing mobility of agricultural extension workers to support the sub sector.
The guidelines for vanilla were announced at the Uganda Media Center by Kibanzanga on the 21st of May 2019.
Vanilla is one of the high value crops grown in 25 Districts of Uganda, mainly in Central, Eastern and Western parts of the country and is used to add flavor to drinks, dairy products, sweet food, cosmetic products and may also be applied in pharmaceutical industries.
The Dairy sector is the largest consumer of vanilla and here, it is used in ice cream, yoghurt, chocolate and other flavored dairy products. Global consumption of vanilla ranges between 2,100MT to 2,400 MT per year over the last 10 years.
However, there is now increasing demand for all-natural and organic vanilla from major Global food companies.
In 2015 for instance, Nestle announced a major plan to go all-natural for all their products and eliminate artificial additives. This offers a major opportunity for Uganda which has the most conducive climate to increase the production of premium quality natural and organic vanilla.
In 2018, Uganda produced about 300,000Kg of vanilla and exported 23,000Kg of cured vanilla worth US $6.40 million.
In 2017 and 2018, the major importing countries for Ugandan vanilla included USA, France, United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Canada, Denmark, Netherlands, Israel, South Africa, Turkey and Hungary. Madagascar is the largest producer (1500 to 1800 MT per year) while Uganda only accounts for about 5 per cent of the global production.
Prices for vanilla have been rising over the last few years due to increased demand against very low supply of quality beans.
In Uganda, prices reached Shs250,000 per kilogram in July 2018 for green vanilla beans at the farm-gate. It is not surprising to hear that vanilla is now referred to as the “Green Gold”.
This is because of the price fetched from cured vanilla which is higher than the value of one kilogram of silver.
s a country, Uganda has a window of opportunity to secure a growing long-term profitable vanilla sector. vanilla has proved to be a sustainable and profitable crop for farmers in Uganda that has potential to deliver the country into the medium income status.
