Local Avocado turns Cash crop

The government through the National Agricultural Advisory Services is asking farmers across the country and private persons and families to preserve the local avocado varieties as the demand for avocado has more than doubled.

This follows the increased demand for avocado oil across the country as a result of processing plants set up in the country to extract crude oil from Avocados.

Avolio is the first and biggest avocado oil processor in Uganda and with the ability to buy and process  160,000 Kilos of Avocado fruits every day, thus adding value to the abundantly available fruit.

This has reduced pressure on farmers as this has created demand for  22 million kilos of avocados annually from from hundreds of thousands of farmers across the country.

Hassan Al-Kailani the managing partner of Avolio in Namanve  and Khadija Nakakande the NAADS spokesperson say the Ugandan local variety avocado complimented by Hass Avocado is expected to to bring in around 4 million dollars into the Ugandan economy annually.

Hassan Al-Kailani says they are working on a parallel seedling initiative where they supply underprivileged farmers with seedlings at a very low cost in a bid to establish a long-term partnership with farmers and support towards a better and sustainable future.

The fruit pricing is dependent on the dry matter content of the fruit, where the farmer can decide to increase his monetary return simply by employing good agricultural practices.