Residents of Busia District have been urged to embrace commercial agriculture and take advantage of the area’s strategic position on the Uganda-Kenya border to access wider markets across East Africa.
Speaking at the inaugural Busia District Agriculture Expo at Masafu Playground, National Resistance Movement (NRM) National Treasurer Barbara Nekesa said the district’s location offered farmers significant opportunities to expand beyond subsistence production.
“We are a border district, and this comes with opportunities of market access both locally and internationally,” Nekesa said on Saturday .
She noted that Busia hosts one of East and Central Africa’s largest cereal trading hubs but said much of the produce sold there originates from other districts.
“This is one of the biggest export markets for cereals and other agricultural produce, which we must take advantage of,” she added.
Nekesa urged farmers to transition to commercial agriculture, citing growing demand from Uganda’s urban centres and the wider East African market.
She also cautioned against continued subdivision of land, describing it as a major obstacle to agricultural productivity.
“We need to move away from rampant land fragmentation because it is a hindering factor to commercial agriculture,” she said.
According to Nekesa, farmers can substantially increase household incomes by investing in high-value crops such as coffee.
“If you grow one acre of coffee, you can earn not less than Shs27 million per season,” she said.
Former tourism minister Godfrey Kiwanda Ssuubi used the event to train farmers on coffee agronomy, including proper land preparation and recommended spacing of 10 by 10 feet, which accommodates about 450 seedlings per acre.
He said a well-managed coffee tree can generate about Shs50,000 per season, translating into more than Shs22 million per acre annually.
“To earn such money from maize, you would need at least 10 acres. Farmers must join the cash economy,” Kiwanda said.
The May 28-30, 2026 expo also highlighted success stories from beneficiaries of the government’s Parish Development Model (PDM).
Adikinyi Wanyama from Majanji Sub-county said she invested a Shs1 million PDM loan in piggery two years ago and now sells about 16 piglets annually at Shs250,000 each.
Another beneficiary, Hadija Musana, said her poultry enterprise had expanded from 100 birds to 3,000 birds over three years with support from the programme.
Busia District LC5 Chairperson John Charles Namayindi said the expo had provided farmers with practical knowledge and pledged to make it an annual event.
“As a district, we commit that this agriculture expo will be annual because farmers have learnt a lot from the experts,” he said.
District Production Head Patrick Barasa said the exhibition was intended to provide a platform for farmers to showcase their enterprises and engage directly with agricultural specialists.