The World Bank has ranked Uganda the 10th country in Africa with the lowest food price inflation rate at 2.5 percent as of January 2024.
According to the Food Security Update report released in January 2024 by the World Bank, Uganda employed export taxes, among other trade policy actions on food, to respond to domestic needs when faced with potential food shortages. This resulted in a reduction in food price inflation, which significantly dropped from 27.6 percent in January 2023 to 2.5 percent in January 2024.
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) notes that food price inflation has a significant impact on food security, whereby the increase in food prices leads to reduced caloric intake and forces households to consume less preferred foods, which affects their food security status, while the reduction in food prices does the opposite.
Despite the World Bank projecting that 56 million people in fragile and conflict-affected states in East and southern Africa will be food insecure by June 2024 resulting from conflicts, macroeconomic crises, and extreme climate events, the reduction in Uganda’s food inflation rate gives it a positive outlook.
Uganda has established itself as one of East Africa’s major food baskets, mainly because of its agricultural productivity, producing bananas, cassava, sweet potatoes, millet, sorghum, maize, beans, and groundnuts as the main food crops.
Working with FAO, the Government of Uganda has been taking the necessary measures to address food and nutrition challenges while calling upon all key stakeholders to play active roles in the race to achieve zero hunger by 2030.
Currently, the government, through the Parish Development Modal (PDM) and other programs, is directing efforts towards enhancing income and food security for rural households by, among others, increasing investment in quality inputs, extension services, agriculture research, water for production for crops and animals, mechanization, pest and disease control, animal husbandry, and fisheries; and increasing the available capital base from which farmers and agriculture sector players can borrow.