Cassava project to change lives in Busoga, Northern Uganda

________________

The Busambu in Kamuli district, a new cassava plant, is rewriting the crop’s story. By turning tubers into starch for medicines and ethanol, it is opening opportunities that stretch far beyond the farm gate.

The enterprise promises to lift the region from poverty into a money economy. The plant, Dei Bio Pharma Advanced Agro Processing Park in Busambu village, Kamuli district was launched on November 20.

The chief guest was President Yoweri Museveni. Dr Mathias Magoola, the Dei Bio-Pharma chief executive director, said once the project gains momentum, products such as human, livestock drugs and vaccines shall be available for local use and export.

The company already has a branch in Matugga, Wakiso district. The Busambu plant will process 500–600 tonnes of cassava daily, the first of the kind in Africa, according to Magoola.

To meet the demand for cassava, since 2024, DEI has been mobilising farmers to grow more cassava to grab the opportunity, adding that the varieties being promoted include Narocas 1, Narocas 2, and NASE 14, distributed free to registered farmers. Demonstration gardens covering over 3,000 acres at Busambu highlight the scale of the project.

“We are harvesting the mother gardens,” Magoola said.

According to Dr Michael Mugabira, the agri-business value chain development specialist at the Busambu plant, the tubers contain properties such as bio starch, maltose, glucose used in pharmaceuticals.

“The value addition chain births manufacture of other products that include human, livestock drugs and vaccines and power ethanol,” Mugabira said.

The Greater Busoga Cassava Growers’ Union (GBCGU), the crop promotion agency headed by Godfrey Biriwaali, in conjunction with the National Agricultural Research Organisation (NARO), is working around the clock to ensure that the crop is propagated fourfold through distribution of the cuttings in the target sub-regions that include Busoga, Lango, Teso and Buganda.

The promoters of growing cassava are the management of the Greater Busoga Sugarcane Growers’ Union (GBSGU), which for seven years has championed sugarcane growing in Busoga region.

“Selling raw cassava saves farmers from the hustles of peeling, drying and bagging. With the cassava plant in Kamuli, farmers shall simply harvest , ferry the tubers to the factory for prompt payment,” Biriwali says.

 

Museveni commissioning the Dei Group Advanced Agro Processing Park in Kamuli last week.

Magoola said he set up the Busambu plant to empower the community he hails from. The plant is a sister facility to the Dei Bio-Pharma Industries – Matugga in Wakiso district.

Cassava vs sugarcane

Mugabira calls the venture “a dawn of prosperity” for Busoga, often described as one of the nation’s poorest regions, quoting the Uganda National Bureau of Statistics report 2015.

Per now, since early this month before the presidential commissioning of the Plant, convoys of cassava laden trucks started snaking to Busambu plant. Biriwali urges farmers to embrace cassava over sugarcane.

“In 2021, a tonne of sugarcane cost between sh230,000 – sh245,000. Today, it is sh125,000 and farmers are suffering,” he says.

Cassava, by contrast, matures in eight months, harvested twice before sugarcane’s 18 month cycle.

“With cassava, we shall bag cash in 8–9 months while feeding families,” Mugabira adds. Factory prices of sh300–400 per kilo translate to “sweeter money”.

With yields of 20–25 tonnes per acre, farmers can earn sh4–sh5m per season, compared to sugarcane’s sh1.6–sh2.5m per acre.

Sweet potatoes are also targeted. Besides buying cassava, Dei Bio-Phrama will also buy sweet potatoes in bulk to extract starches and sugars that support in drugs manufacture. GBSGU is mobilising farmers into cooperatives to supply 15,000 tonnes monthly.

Target districts include Kamuli, Buyende, Luuka, Jinja, Kaliro, Iganga, Mayuge and Kayunga in Busoga sub-region. In northern Uganda, they will work with farmers in districts like Amolatar, Apac and Soroti, which will ferry tubers across Lake Kyoga.

Ethanol technologies

Beyond food, cassava will fuel innovation. According to Mugabira, cassava products will extend to the manufacture of industrial ethanol, clinical ethanol, spirits and power ethanol for blending petrol and diesel. Uganda spends sh250b per year on importing ethanol, the costs Mugabira said shall reduce by 75% in the next three years.

Community response

Local leaders have welcomed the project, urging the communities to embrace it. Kamuli LC5 vice-chairperson Sarah Sambya calls it “timely” for a farming community struggling with poverty.

“Women, who provide most of the labour, will be the core beneficiaries,” she says.

Victoria Apili, the Kamuli deputy district speaker and female district council for Bugulumbya sub-county, warn the communities against the excitement of the cassava wave.

“Do not rush, reserve portions for family food security” Apili, also the female district councillor for Bugulumba sub-county, said.

She adds that given sugarcane’s fluctuating rates, cassava is the way forward for property and food security.

About cassava

Cassava has long been a staple food and cash crop for Ugandans, according to Dr Samuel Namanda, a researcher with the National Agricultural Research Organisation.

He explained that the crop contributes 75% of the food produced in Teso region, featuring between 12,000 -15,000 tonnes of raw tubers from Teso region.

Dr Fredrick Kabbale, Buyende’s district production and marketing officer, notes that cassava is consumed in various forms, that is, roasted, boiled, fried as chips, or prepared as cassava meal.

It is also used to enrich millet bread (kalo) and local brews like kwete and malwa.

During dry spells in 1980 and 2017, according to Michael Kanaku, the Buyende LC5 chairperson and resident of Kiribairya village on the shores of Lake Kyoga, cassava saved millions of lives from hunger.

John Ndaba, 70, a father of six, narrated how the family survived on Ochada (cassava meal) and mushrooms collected from rotten tree stumps and gardens.

Cassava is also affordable, costing between sh600-sh1,200 per kilo for dried and processed forms respectively, compared to maize at sh1,500–sh2,000.

On agronomy, Peter Dhamuzungu, the principal science officer of chemical services in the science ministry, says that cassava maturity depends on variety, ranging between 7-10 months with average spacing of 3x3 feet.

Cassava can be inter-cropped with beans, soybeans, maize, peas among other cereals from germination to four feet high.

He advises that to have consistent supply, farmers need to establish new gardens every four months.