How technology is helping Uganda boost its horticulture exports to the EU and beyond.
Agriculture remains the backbone of the East Africa region’s economy. In the case of Uganda, it is the main source of livelihood and employment for over 60 percent of the population. Agriculture contributes to over 70 percent of Uganda’s export earnings, with earnings of approximately 100 million dollars annually. However, Uganda is not fully meeting its production and trade potential due to challenges in managing pests at the farm level and meeting international phytosanitary trade requirements.
Uganda has in the recent past had its exports repetitively intercepted on transit to the EU market.
- In 2015, hot pepper export to Europe was suspended for more than a month due to poor storage issues, pesticide residues, and packaging amongst others.
- In 2018, the EU issued a warning to Uganda over horticulture exports due to concerns that revolved around the presence of pests, poor storage, packaging, and high levels of unwanted pesticide residues.
- Despite having taken steps to address the traceability issue in April 2019, the EU once again threatened to ban Ugandan’s agro-exports.
The Story of Elohim Exporters
ELOHIM Exporters is one of Uganda’s exporters of fresh foods to the European market that has been affected like many others. Elohim began with the exportation of many fresh foods to the European market but was forced to drop some of their suppliers when their products were listed as ‘high-risk items. The daily interception of these products plus the additional cost of destruction of the products by the exporter compounded by shipping expenses made exporting a hazardous business.
Given that food safety is a worldwide concern, there is an increased need for assurance of its quality and safety. Thus, the EU demands that as soon as you start exporting to the EU, you have to comply with European Standards. A farmer has to ensure that the pesticides and particularly the residues that are maintained on the product have to comply with these strict standards.
Elohim Exporters’ concern is that the highest interceptions of their products are because of high chemical content. This is very difficult to manage sometimes because if a farmer is desperate for a sale, they will not disclose if the spraying was done a day ago. Moreover, Uganda as a nation does not have a laboratory for testing the chemical content. Furthermore, the traceability of a
product involves the tracking and tracing of the product as it moves through the different stages of the supply chain.
This needs to be addressed because of the many players, particularly suppliers, involved that invisible.
– Monica, Managing Director, Elohim Exporters.
The challenge is brought about by many factors, namely;
When the farmer doesn’t have enough of that product, they will not tell you. They will go and outsource from another farm.
In the event of pest detection, Elohim Exporters may not be able to trace back in the case of emergency response.
Thirdly, the unpredictability of the supply is another challenge.
In some scenarios, Elohim Exporters be forced to run to the agro-produce market to buy say 100kgs of sweet potatoes to cover shortfalls in quantities supplied.
Traceability implementation in Uganda:
Whereas it remains a huge challenge, supply chain actors have to find ways of working together to implement traceability if they are to resolve the exportation challenges.
Sulma Foods Uganda is another certified organic exporter with main markets in the Middle-east. According to M.D, Mr. Abdulkarim Karama, the existing traceability system, even though manageable, needs upgrading to an electronic system. Farmers are given codes and farms are mapped out using GPS. The challenge with this manual system is that it can result in the possibility of interchanging the codes meant to go on the boxes. Such errors may not be easily noticed.
in 2005 hot pepper export to Europe was suspended for more than a month due to poor storage issues, pesticide residues, and packaging amongst others.
Horticulture traceability system implementation
What Uganda needs is a traceability system that can offer the following;
- Increase the competitiveness of Uganda horticulture exports
- Enhance transparency in the supply chain
- Facilitate rapid response to food safety risks by providing the capacity to identify, Isolate and rectify non-compliant producers
- Quicken response to pests and diseases early warning alerts.
- Introduce standards that offer a common language for all stakeholders in the supply chain.
Uganda can also learn from her sister country-Kenya- which has already put in place a national horticulture traceability system.
- Offers enhanced safety for consumers
- Reduces food loss and waste
- Leads to more informed management decisions, thus increased market penetration, and reduced operating costs;
- Reduce out-of-date product losses, lower inventory levels, quicken the identification of process and supplier difficulties, and raise the effectiveness of logistics and distribution operations;
- Improve customer confidence
- Support branding and improved brand equity.