Avocado is a darling of health conscious people especially in Europe and America. But the demand of the green fruit has now reached a global level. The avocado is being praised for all kinds of nutritional benefits.
Avocados have truly become a global commodity crop. The world’s avocado craze has intensified every year. The global market for avocados has been quite dynamic in past few years.
The global avocado market was valued at US14.9 billion dollars in 2017, which was the highest record to date. But it then dropped to US13.64 billion dollars in 2018, followed by a further decline to US12.82 billion dollars in 2019. It took another dip to US9.14 billion dollars in 2020 due to the impact of the COVID 19 pandemic.
Uganda Avocado
Uganda has jumped on the bandwagon of the booming avocado market. Farmers in Uganda are upping production of the most desired avocado variety so as to reap the good returns. Farmers have realized that avocado is a crop that requires little care but produces big benefits for them.
Avocados are among the many horticultural crops that have made Uganda the second largest horticultural producer in Sub-Saharan Africa after Nigeria. Avocado is surely climbing the list to the top fresh produce exports from Uganda. Horticulture accounts for 85% of Uganda’s total agricultural exports.
Uganda Avocado Export
Uganda is relatively new to the avocado export market. In the 1990s, exporters in Uganda who wanted to sell fresh fruits and vegetables in Europe and the Middle East emerged. Most of them bought their produce from small scale farmers while some of them were farmer-exporters. These farmer-exporters sold produce from their own estates and bought additional crop from small scale farmers.
Over the last two decades, the government of Uganda has pushed for agricultural export diversification. Traditional cash crops such as coffee, cocoa, maize, tea and cotton are all suffering from falling global market prices. Uganda is now looking to avocados as one of its ways to economic success.
In 2020, the government of Uganda selected avocado as one of the high economic potential crops apart from coffee. The government launched a nationwide campaign to promote the production of avocado for export purposes.
Since Uganda is a relatively new avocado supplier to the export market, its export earnings are climbing softly. Here are the total values in export for avocados from Uganda between 2010 and 2020:
Avocado Value Chain in Uganda
The main players in the avocado value chain in Uganda are avocado farmers, rural assemblers (buying agents), wholesalers, retailers and domestic consumers. But here is the following order for avocados meant for the export market:
- Contracted smallholder farmers, medium and large scale commercial farmers and large company farms
- Exporters
- Importers in international markets like the European Union (EU) and UAE
- International consumers
Here is a top avocado exporter in Uganda.
Freshela Exporters
Freshela is a company that engages in the sourcing, processing and exporting of avocados and other fresh produce such as mango, pineapple, banana, vegetables and herbs.
Freshela is a proud exporter of Uganda avocados. Our avocados are organically grown in the most ideal climatic conditions in Uganda.
We source avocados from our company farms and partner farms. Our partner farmers are proud and happy working with us.
Our avocados are cultivated with uncompromising dedication to excellence and freshness. We guarantee optimum maturity of avocados.
We give competitive pricing to our customers.
We use a modern grading machine to achieve desired avocado weight. The fruit is also graded to eliminate any with physical quality defects.
We pack avocado fruit in 4kg cartons for both air and sea freights. We use dry wooden pallets to pack the cartons. Each pallet for sea freight takes 276 cartons while each pallet for air freight takes 144 cartons.
All of our avocado packing is approved by FDA and is certified by HACCP Quality Assurance.
The avocados in our pack house go through accurate machine selection. The avocados are classified according to dry meter, size, colour and external skin defects.
After packing, we pre-cool our avocados to 5°C in our cold rooms. This reduces field heat immediately after packing.
This process conserves the weight of our avocados preventing them from softening, water loss and wilting. Long shelf life is guaranteed because our avocados stay fresh throughout the supply chain. Our customers are happy because of the high quality of avocado we deliver.
The pre-cooling process is in preparation for transportation. We maintain the cold temperatures and achieve consistent preservation by loading close to the cold rooms.
Our trained staff properly seal the refrigerated containers. Our quality assurance team then confirms before the containers leave the pack house. The avocados are now ready for export.
By working directly with avocado growers and cooperatives, we are able to deliver our produce within a short lead time. We believe that growers grow and exporters export. That is how our growers are able to do what they do best and in return we guarantee superior, quality produce.
Avocados from Uganda are mainly exported to the following countries:
- Qatar
- The United Arab Emirates (UAE)
- Saudi Arabia
- The United Kingdom (UK)
- Belgium
Avocado Supply Chain Issues in Uganda
The avocado industry in Uganda is developing steadily. It is quite a journey for avocados from Uganda to reach supermarket shelves, groceries and food markets around Europe. Some of the issues the avocado export sector in Uganda is facing include:
- There is fierce competition in the international market. Avocados from Uganda have to compete in the European market with avocados from Peru, Chile, Kenya and Tanzania.
- Since Uganda is a land-locked country, all its avocado exports to Europe are transported via air. Air freight costs are higher than sea freight costs making Ugandan avocados more expensive on the international market. Other avocado exporting countries in Africa like Kenya, Tanzania and South Africa have ports which they use to ship a bulk of their avocados.
- Avocados are a tropical fruit so their production is seasonal. Avocados produced in Uganda during the off-peak season are for the domestic market because they are in small quantities.
- The export market demands specific avocado varieties whose seedlings are not easily available for many farmers in Uganda.
- Low quality fruits due to poor harvesting and post-harvest handling practices.
- Transport problems such as poor roads which are impassable during the rainy season and lack of refrigerated trucks restrict flow of produce by adding huge amount of costs in terms of direct transport charges, delays and breakdowns.
- Logistical problems such as very few cold room facilities for pre-cooling and poor packaging.
- Limited extension services
- Poor agronomic practices like excess use of pesticides during pest and disease control.
The value chain for avocados from Uganda presents players in the avocado sub-sector with several opportunities. Here are some of the chances in the export market for Ugandan avocados:
- The demand for avocados in the international market is higher than supply. It is for this reason that Uganda can rise to become among the largest avocado exporting countries in Africa.
- Avocados are showing a trend of stable growth in demand and prices in the global market unlike coffee which is the main export crop from Uganda. This trend is largely being driven by increased awareness of healthy eating.
- Emergence of new export markets like Asia can supplement export earnings from the European markets.
- Opening large plantations so as to produce larger volumes of avocado for export. There are many potential areas in Uganda for growing avocados that are untapped.
- Investing in facilities that process avocados. Avocado processing involves sorting, cleaning, grading, packaging, cooking oil, cosmetics and soap products.
- Manufacture or supply of inputs required in the entire avocado value chain. These inputs include seeds and seedlings, pesticides, fertilizers, farming equipment, avocado packaging materials, refrigerated trucks and cold rooms.
- Government support. The government of Uganda abolished the export tax on avocados as part of its export promotion policy. The European markets can import Ugandan avocados free of duty.
- Formation of Horticulture Exporters Association of Uganda (HORTEXA) to register avocado exporters in Uganda so as to eliminate fraudsters and build cooperation between exporters.
- Formation of HortiFresh Association Uganda Limited (HortiFresh) to bring together avocado farmers in the horticulture sector in Uganda. Their goal is sustainable avocado production for the international market.
- Establishment of cold storage facilities at the Entebbe International Airport.
- Existence of policy and government guidelines. Development of the avocado sub-sector in Uganda , which is under the horticulture sector, is being guided by The Agriculture Sector Strategic Plan (ASSP)
- Skilled people and experts who are internationally accredited to conduct audits from farms to processing factories.
Avocados exports give Uganda the most promising future. Here are some of the reasons why:
- Increasing incomes in the rural areas
- Improving nutrition of many people
- Diversification of earnings from exports
- Providing raw materials (the fruit itself, seed and even skin) for agro-based industries such as avocado oil, organic fertilizer and biogas.
- Creating employment especially for young people