Dissecting Uganda’s competitiveness-II

‘…our Nakati really comes from South Africa? This is sacrilege…how did we get here…’? Mzee Mashurubu gets incensed, as presentations form private sector executives during the 12th National Competitiveness Forum get under way. One striking bitter reality was that Uganda Airlines does not serve Ugandan juices on its inflight menu. Reason? Inconsistency in the taste of the juices. It serves imported juices…our national carrier, key channel of our tourism and international marketing.

As we mused over this, naughty nephew had earlier hit us with an even heavier blow: Ugandan supermarkets stock Nakati from South Africa. Nakati is the Luganda name for a popular specie of amaranthus spp, a green vegetable edible by the leaf. Yes. Uganda imports this from South Africa. ‘We are busy scoring own goals…and we decry poverty, unemployment and their related effects…we must end this...we are 200 years late’, Mzee concludes. What emerges from the presentations by the private sector panelists, we are the primary culprits, innocently or otherwise.

That Uganda imports Nakati points to the squinted nature of our agriculture and the paradigm shift we need here is very simple: UDB, UDC, and partner with Ugandan investors ready and able to manage fresh food value chains. For long, we have confused supply links with value chains. A supply link is a case where a matooke farmer rides three kilometres to a village market, delivering six bunches to ‘whom it may concern’, while  the truck that bought matooke from the same market last week, is on this very day delivering chicken manure, in another district, three hundred kilometres away.

The matooke farmer gets stuck: either sell at throw away price or they will ripen. Conversely, a value-chain is where the matooke farmer delivers to a contract aggregator in the village on agreed terms: Quantity, quality, frequency, and price. The aggregator, under contract transporter terms with the truck owner, supplies the matooke to a Green Supermarket in the city, on agreed terms of quantity, quality, frequency, and price. This is the secret that we must unlock for our prosperity.  

A South African farmer, thousands of kilometres away, outcompetes a Ugandan vegetable farmer in the Ugandan market because the former can fill the supermarket shelf allocated to his Nakati from January to December, while the latter cannot even sustain a month’s supply.  Essential paradigm shift here: UDB shifts from their ‘established policy’ of not financing start-ups.

Most Uganda enterprises die during the pre-breakeven phase. This is where UDB and UDC muscle comes in to absorb the shocks of this crucial stage.  Competitiveness in fresh and processed foods (as seen in the case of Ugandan juice) entails many variables.  As a country, we score top in disrespecting and wasting our natural food: sold from anywhere, anyhow. Market segments like airlines and international export will seek to establish such quality variables as certification in different domains: GAP (good agronomic practices), HACCP (hazard analysis and critical control points), GMP (good manufacturing practices), even to the highest level of Codex Alimentarius, plus the various ISO certifications. Equally vital are nutritional value and ingredient contents.

When the UNBS Q-mark is given to a food product, what exactly does this reflect? One juice brand is made from concentrates, another is made from fresh fruits. Both carry the UNBS Q-mark. Does this mark communicate the same message about the two juices? Variables such as bio-chemistry homogenisation, thermal uniformity, are crucial determinants in food quality and competitiveness. And these are only possible through mega factories, anchored in PSPP-value chains, employing nutritionists, food science technocrats, inter alia. ‘Home-based businesses’ will render us even more uncompetitive.

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