When Guidance Trails:
Lukewarm Extension Services Leave Maize Farmers in Loss
Written by: Doreen Nanyondo
Saturday, October 18, 2025
Yowasi Sserunkuma, 36, a resident of Nnundu Nakibanga village, Kayabwe Town Council in Mpigi district, has been growing maize for the last fifteen years on about two hectares per season.
Sserunkuma’s harvest is always around 1,600 kilograms per hectare, almost half of the average yield expected of his piece of land. Like many smallholder farmers, who constitute the largest portion of Uganda’s agriculture, he has to deal with a cocktail of challenges including; poor seed varieties, unstable weather, poor input quality among other things.
For Sserunkuma, the biggest pain has been his inability to ensure quality from “my small harvest”.
“Immediately after the maize is harvested from the garden, it is affected by pests and weather during storage which consequently reduce its quality and quantity. This limits my ability as a farmer to set the price of maize on the market because it’s always little and of low quality, forcing me to sell it in favor of the traders hence incurring many losses,” says Sserunkuma.
Uganda is ranked as the 8th exporter of maize in Africa with a large proportion of it being exported to regional markets particularly Kenya. Around 75% of maize growers in Uganda are small scale farmers who are struggling to make a living as well as reducing the rampant food insecurity in their homes as well as the country.
Maize is a vital cereal crop that serves as a primary staple food, a crucial source of income for over two million households. Its high commercialization makes it a key commodity in a liberalized market, supporting farmers, traders, and millers, and contributing significantly to the national food security and agro-industrialization agenda.
It is also a raw material for thousands of products, including various foods like cornmeal, cornbread and popcorn. Industrial products such as ethanol fuel, adhesives, medications, cosmetics, and soaps. Common uses include breakfast cereals, beverages like beer, and animal feed, with its byproducts like corn germ yielding corn oil and other valuable compounds.
However, recently, Ugandan maize has been flagged on the market because it frequently contains aflatoxins, which are poisonous and carcinogenic toxins. Researchers have attributed it to storage and handling during harvest.
Uganda’s maize production has been fluctuating with a notable peak of 4.46 million metric tons in 2020 to 3.19 million metric tons in 2023 and 2024. This fluctuation is mainly caused by the farmers who are continuously demoralized to reinvest in maize planting seasons because of the losses they encounter every harvesting season.
Quraish Musiitwa a resident of Busesse village, Nkozi sub county in Mpigi district says he harvests about 3 tonnes of maize per season. He is only able to sell off about 2 tonnes, while the remaining is lost in post harvest handling.
“There’s always financial instability at the beginning of every season due to inadequate cash at hand. This forces me to take an agricultural loan from the bank with the aim of paying it back after harvesting the maize. Unfortunately, the funds obtained from selling can only cover the bank loan because of the losses incurred after harvest, leaving me with no profits. This situation has left me frustrated and discouraged from growing maize every season,” Musiitwa says.
The government of Uganda under the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries (MAAIF) has continuously come up with different initiatives to reduce post-harvest losses among maize farmers in order to increase the exports as well.
These initiatives include improved Drying and Storage such as PICS bags, using tarpaulins on vehicles, Capacity Building through farmer training on handling practices done by agricultural extension services, supporting infrastructure investment, and technology dissemination through networks like Farm Business Advisors and extension workers.
However, many farmers, especially small holder farmers, don’t benefit from these initiatives because of the terms and conditions as well as the prices attached to them.
According to Musiitwa, he can’t afford to buy the PICS bags that were introduced by the government under the MAAIF, however much they are of a good importance when it comes to storing maize.
“The (PICS) bags can store maize for more than 8 years however expensive since they cost shs.8000 each yet 1kg of maize costs not more than shs.1500. Therefore, I end up using these normal sacks to store maize in that some profits are obtained on the contrary but are affected by pests in stores incurring losses in one way or the other.”
The Purdue Improved Crop Storage (PICS) bags were introduced to Uganda for maize storage starting in 2014 through a pilot program by Clusa Uganda, after initial testing in West Africa.
This introduction followed a broader initiative by organizations like the World Food Programme to promote modern, hermetic storage technologies for smallholder farmers in Uganda starting around 2013.
In 1962, the government expanded extension services to reach smallholder farmers in order to increase food crop production, quality and rural development. Extension was largely public and free with officers based at sub-county levels.
Currently, at the local government levels, agricultural extension functions are carried out by staff deployed at district and sub county levels. Their functions include teaching farmers improved farming practices, pest and disease control, soil management and post-harvest handling.
Uganda’s government policy aims for three agricultural extension officers per sub-county to cover crops, livestock, and fisheries, but staffing levels are currently significantly lower and vary by region, with a nationwide shortage.
Reports from 2025 and 2020 indicate a substantial gap between the number of extension workers hired and the targets, leading to a very high farmer-to-extension worker ratio. This gap has left many farmers unattended to most especially when it comes to post-harvest handling.
Steven Ssenyange has served as the extension officer for Nkozi sub county for the past five years. He served a population of 6,195 households yet his supervision budget is about one million shillings per quarter.
“Being the only agricultural extension officer in charge of crops in the whole sub county it is difficult to reach out to more than 100 maize farmers at once yet they all need to be educated on different issues most especially post-harvest losses which are affecting them economically.”
For the Financial Year 2025/26, the total proposed budget for the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries was Shs611.5 billion for development programs and Shs188.1 billion for operational costs, adding up to a significant portion of the Shs72.3 trillion.
The irony is that this budget focused on transforming agriculture from subsistence to commercial levels.
Whereas the government allocated Shs.72.3 trillion to ensure transformation of farmers from subsistence agriculture to commercial levels, many farmers in the country are still carrying out their agricultural activities in subsistence for production because of challenges they encounter at different stages of production.
hese challenges include; inadequate capital to invest in agricultural practices, few extension officers to train them, high interests attached to the agricultural loans, the use of traditional methods during harvest among others.
Sserunkuma says he wants to expand his maize production from subsistence consumption to commercial consumption mainly but is often being cut off by capital.
“Transforming to commercial consumption calls for adequate capital at hand because one has to purchase more seeds of good quality, more PICS bags, pesticides, adequate labor among others. Of which the capital is always unavailable to cater for them all thus hindering the transformation.”
By the time of publication of this article, Ministry of Agriculture officials were not available to respond to why initiatives to promote better farming and storage practices have been unyielding yet money has been spent on these projects.
However, the Production departments in different districts of Uganda provide advice to farmers and other value chain actors on utilization of agricultural inputs. These departments also oversee agribusiness development and facilitate market linkages, ensuring farmers receive the latest information and support to improve productivity and income within the agricultural sector.
James Patrick Sserwadde the Head of Production and Marketing in Mpigi district says as the department they try to execute their duties but they always face a challenge of inadequate funds most especially those allocated to fighting post-harvest losses among maize farmers.
“There’re always funds allocated to fight post-harvest losses at the district level but it’s always hard to equally distribute the available funds since many farmers don’t engage in growing maize only thus ending up distributing them unevenly which eventually affects the output of maize in the district and the country at large,” Serwadda says.
Despite the glaring challenges, Uganda’s smallholder maize farmers continue to show remarkable resilience. But resilience alone is not enough. The fight against post-harvest losses must shift from policy documents and pilot projects to real, accessible support on the ground. There is an urgent need to subsidize essential storage tools, increase the number of extension officers, provide affordable agricultural loans tailored to the needs of smallholders, and invest in infrastructure that supports drying, storage, and collective marketing.
The potential of Uganda’s maize sector remains vast but only if the farmers who power it are given the tools, knowledge, and resources to succeed. Until then, the cycle of loss, debt, and despair will persist, and Uganda’s dream of transforming agriculture from subsistence to commercial scale will remain unfulfilled.
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