KAMPALA: Uganda's cocoa production is likely to increase by 15 percent over the next three years, boosted by additional maturing trees in the country's western region, a leading industry executive said on Friday.
Uganda is best known as a coffee producer, ranking as Africa's biggest exporter, but it is keen to boost output from other cash crops such as cocoa to boost foreign exchange income.
Cocoa output experienced a steady climb from 5,000 tonnes in 2004 to 26,000 tonnes in 2013, according to figures from Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS).
Philip Betts, managing director of leading exporter, Esco Uganda Ltd, said output had levelled off in recent years because of aging trees in the main growing area of Bundibugyo district, near the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo.
"Production will pick up in other districts," Betts said, saying newly planted trees would come to maturity in the next three years or so to hike output to about 30,000 tonnes, a 15 percent rise from the current level of about 26,000 tonnes.
"There will be an increase but not a big sharp increase because we're fighting a decline in Bundibugyo," he said.
Cocoa growing has fluctuated in Uganda since it was introduced nearly 100 years ago. Output peaked in the 1960s, but neglect and lack of finance hampered the sector in the 1970s and 1980s. Most cocoa is now grown by smallholders.
Ugandan farming, including cocoa growing, has struggled to attract large-scale farmers because much of the arable land has been divided into small plots as families expand and smaller units are handed down, often leading to ownership disputes.
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