Promoting farmer entrepreneurship among smallholders in Uganda

Smallholder farmers typify agricultural production in Uganda. Smallholder farmers have severally been criticised for the lack of entrepreneurship yet farmer entrepreneurship is generally defined by two facets; the managerial skills needed to start and run a profitable farm business and an entrepreneurial spirit. In this, regard several smallholders have proven to be good managers of their farm enterprises as they take decisions at farm level. However, their limited ability at risk taking, innovativeness and initiative for growth and farm estate expansion has led to them being defined as marginal entrepreneurs. This paper discusses the efforts by two young non-government organisations initiated by dynamic youth from various professional backgrounds undertaking actions towards developing smallholder farmer entrepreneurship in Uganda. Building on the work of Agri-ProFocus thematic areas for developing farmer entrepreneurship, the Research and Education Agency and the Kampala Legal Aid have added the legal services as an additional thematic area into the framework. The rationale is to ensure that smallholder farmers are in better position to articulate their engagements and contracts particularly as they seek to exploit the business partnership models such as contract farming that are on the increase in Uganda. Further, there are numerous potential areas for farmer entrepreneurship in Uganda from the farm level to exploitation of various value chains, new technologies, and financial inclusion opportunities. The paper acknowledges that smallholder farmers operate in a dynamic and complex ecosystem and therefore, the range of moderators and players in this ecosystem present both opportunities and constraints towards farmer entrepreneurship in Uganda.