Agriculture plays a central role for poverty reduction, employment, food security and ultimately economic growth. The total agricultural population in Uganda was estimated to be 25.6 million people in 2018. Most agricultural households are headed by males (74.7% or 5.2 million agricultural households), while women were found to be household heads of 25.3% (or 1.8 million agricultural households). Just 10% of male household heads did not attend to primary school, while about 50% of female household heads did not enrol into primary school.
The average land holding per agricultural household in Uganda is 1.35 hectares, out of it 0.73 hectares are used for agricultural activities, and the remaining 0.62 hectares correspond to land used for other purposes. In average 31.1% of women that own agricultural land have legal documentation proving ownership, while that of men is 48.7%. These figures indicate that a relatively small share of farmers count with legal documentation proving ownership over the land the occupy.
Few Ugandan farmers use fertilisers. An estimated of 76.1% of farmers did not use neither organic nor inorganic fertilisers in 2018. The use of pesticides (that include insecticides, fungicides and herbicides) is not widespread among Ugandan farmers as just 21.1% used them in 2018. Traditional seeds dominate the Ugandan market with 98% of farmers using it. The use of irrigation systems is very limited as just 0.9% of the total agricultural areas in Uganda were irrigated in 2018. Therefore, about 99% of the total cultivated crops were rainfed.
All these features typify agricultural households from several perspectives: they are farmers experiencing low levels of education; male and female households significantly depend on agricultural activities to earn their livelihoods; they cultivate small agricultural plots, which mainly belongs to them, but in general they have no legal documentation proving it which constraints credit options. Farmers generally incorporate low levels of improved inputs (fertilisers, pesticides, seeds, and irrigation) into their production systems. This typification suggests a need to address the challenges faced by small agricultural households which require of mechanisms to address these issues in a holistic manner, from both in-farm and off-farm perspectives.