Expensive seedlings keep Ugandans away from hass avocado

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Ugandans attempting to enter into the Hass avocado growing business are finding it tough to buy expensive seedlings, dealers have said.

A seedling for Hass Avocado is being sold between Shs 5,000 and Shs 8,000 apiece with farmers and middlemen dealing in the fruit saying at that price it is impossible to plant a sizeable garden.

Matasia Kwesiga, who deals in fresh fruits including avocado and helps in preparing nurseries, said while a lot of farmers are willing to plant the fruit many can’t afford because seedlings are expensive.

Industry estimates show that an acre requires 166 seedlings. This means a farmer must have at least Shs 830,000 for seedlings to consider planting – way above what many farmers can afford. This cost is exclusive of other requirements like manure, pesticides, land clearing costs, and weeding. Another challenge is water for irrigation.

“The harvests are so low and even people planting are few,” said Kwesiga.

According to Kwesiga, some farmers are plucking the top parts of the trees to graft them with local avocado to make seedlings which are regarded as more lucrative than selling the actual fruit. This has created a shortage of fruit for export.

Teaching farmers on how to plant the fruit recently, Abubakar Ssengendo the marketing director for Musubi farm which grows Hass Avocado in Mayuge district said one cannot plant the seed of the harvest avocado because it would not produce an actual Hass avocado.

Hass avocado is the most trending fruit at the moment with demand for it stretching Europe, China, the United States, and the Middle East. This type, whose skin turns black when it ripens and has a rough texture, has taken over traditional varieties.

Uganda’s avocado exports grew by average 172 percent annually and expanded by 1005.6 percent in the last five years, according to Tridge, an online market intelligence journal.

In 2016 Uganda earned USD 1.91 million (7.2 billion Shillings), said Tridge. The earnings grew to USD 3.3 million (12 billion Shillings) in 2018.

While the demand for the fruit is high, Uganda’s share of the global export market for the fruit is 0.0%, an indicator she is a negligible producer.

Ssengendo said the country needed to plant at least 500,000 acres of avocado to be able to share on the global export market. It is not clear at the moment how much of the fruit has been planted. In the region, Kenya leads the pack in avocado export.

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