Fresh produce worth nearly Shs1 billion rots in Kampala and Jinja markets annually -altering food prices and trapping vendors in debt amid mounting environmental impacts of the massive food waste, a new Makerere University study shows.
The researchers found that every six months, Kampala’s Kalerwe Market generates 298,000 kilogrammes of food waste, while Jinja Central Market produces 91,135 kilogrammes.
This totals 389,135 kilogrammes of food waste in six months -equivalent to 1,080 60kg bags of food waste generated per month or 3,660kg bags per day in both markets.
‘In terms of economic loss, if you convert the food that is wasted, for Kalerwe it was Shs302 million over a six-month period,’ Dr Eria Serwajja, the lead investigator, told the Daily Monitor. ‘While for Jinja, a total of Shs93 million in terms of economic loss was incurred by the traders.’
The researchers also uncovered food items that got spoiled the most.
Dr Serwajja said avocado, watermelon and bogoya (yellow banana—bigger type) were the three most wasted food items in the markets. ‘And these accounted for about 35 percent of the total weight of food wastage in Kalerwe and Jinja Central markets,’ he said.
In the report, for Kalerwe Market, the food items that were wasted the most were avocado, bogoya, ndizi (another form of yellow banana—smaller type), watermelon, and Irish potatoes. At Jinja Central Market, watermelon was wasted the most, followed by potatoes, bogoya, sweet potatoes, and matooke.
But Dr Serwajja said what is wasted more in terms of weight may not necessarily translate into higher values in terms of economic loss. ‘One example is tomatoes. Tomatoes could be ranked eighth in terms of weight. But it came number one with about Shs39.6 million (in financial loss) within six months,’ he said.
Dr Serwajja added: ‘In contrast, if you look at jackfruit, it can be big, but the amount of money you get from one jackfruit cannot be equivalent to, say, a few kilogrammes of tomatoes.’
According to the report, for Kalerwe Market, the three most valuable food items wasted were watermelon, bogoya and tomatoes, with the three causing a financial loss of Shs95 million in six months. While in Jinja Central Market, tomatoes topped the list, followed by watermelon and Irish potatoes, with the three causing a financial loss of Shs28 million in six months.
These losses exclude what market leaders and authorities go through to collect the waste and take it to landfills.
High food prices, calamity
Dr Serwajja, a lecturer at the Department of Development Studies of the University, said this wastage affects the availability of food and hence the price of food in the areas.
”We, as a country, produce so much food, but there are people who sleep hungry in Kampala. So, if you plug a gap like that (food wastage), it means that the cost of food is going to go down and people are going to start affording food instead of sleeping hungry,” he said.
He added that the country should start thinking differently and address gaps in post-harvest handling, cold rooms, and cold chains to mitigate food wastage.
Dr Serwajja said: ‘The trucks for tomatoes come from Kenya, but the waste ends up at Kalerwe and ends up in landfills. So, all these are economic and environmental costs that we have to factor in when it comes to tomatoes.’
‘Now for Kampala, Kiteezi is filled up, and we have shifted to another landfill in Mpigi. So, land that could have been used for farming is now converted to storage of garbage,’ he added.
The huge pile of garbage in Kiteezi collapsed in August 2024, killing people and destroying property of people in the neighbourhood. Dr Serwajja said they are doing further investigations to assess the contribution of the waste to climate change.
‘There are a lot of studies around emissions from landfill contributing to climate change,’ he said.
Mr Charles Nampendo, the Jinja City physical planner, revealed the struggles in Jinja. ‘Food waste is a serious problem in Jinja because we realise it as a planning authority for Jinja City,’ he said.
‘If there was less wastage, then less would be going into the landfill, but because of the volumes of waste we get from the market, that’s why we also incur a lot of money to collect and have it dumped in our landfill for decomposition. We might run out of space in the landfill if it’s not regulated,’ he added.
Dr Sarah Zalwango, the acting director for public health at Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA), said Kampala currently generates about 2,500 tonnes of waste per day, with organic waste (which includes food waste) constituting close to 80 percent of the total waste.
The researchers said there is a need to reduce and plug the gap in the food supply chain. Dr Serwajja said one of the ways is the introduction of cold rooms in the markets.
‘In fact, most of these World Bank markets, including the one in Jinja, were designed with sections of cold rooms, but they have been given to people to either sell clothes or other things,’ he stated.
Dr Serwajja added: ‘But nobody cares. While that (cold room) could have been used to plug the gaps in the food supply chain to reduce what goes to the landfill and therefore also reduce the methane that is emitted from the garbage pits.’
Mitigation and innovation
Ms Victoria Kakaire, the principal environment officer of Jinja City, said they are emphasising strategies to reduce food wastage. ‘This begins with awareness; it’s all about behavioural change,’ she said.
‘We are sensitising the public on how to use the available resources most appropriately, and this begins right away from school, whereby we are encouraging children to take on what’s within their means,’ she added.
Ms Kakaire said they are promoting value addition on products in place. ‘For instance, there are products in the market that can be dried and that way the shelf life can be prolonged.’
She added: ‘We are encouraging people to get solar dryers, and for those who cannot afford them, we are encouraging them to use the sun; they’re shredding them and drying them to make sure they stay longer and reduce wastage.’
Dr Serwajja also said in Kalerwe, traders have already developed innovations that can be promoted.
”In Kalerwe, people have started peeling matooke and putting them in the fridge. If I’m not married and I want to buy peeled matooke, I get it. So, those initiatives are starting to emerge, but they are small-scale and individualistic,” he said.
Ms Kakaire, on the other hand, said they are encouraging people that instead of selling whole fruit, they make juice to reach more consumers.
‘We’re encouraging people to come up with juice stations, and we now have people making juice from avocado and watermelon, instead of everyone looking at only one way of selling.
‘We are also looking at them having bulk banking, whereby you can have them stocked in case there is a bumper harvest, then preserve in agricultural fridges and then later bring them to the market,’ she added.
Mr Nampendo said mitigating food waste should start from production, how traders buy them from farmers, and transport them to the market.
He said consumers are always willing to buy quality products, but those of poor quality go to waste.
‘To mitigate this, we need to look at the quality of harvest, what people will be interested in buying and consuming,’ the Jinja City physical planner said.
He added: ‘When it’s harvested, there are some instances where the vehicle stays on the road for the whole day because of a breakdown, not because of poor roads. And by the time food gets to the market, it’s already spoiled and cannot be consumed by people. Why should vehicles in poor mechanical condition be used?’
Mr Nampendo also said, sometimes, traders buy produce that surpasses what target clients will eventually consume. ‘If you are a business person, why should you buy in large quantities that will not be consumed? If you have been selling only two sacks of avocado, why buy seven sacks?’
Mr Nampendo added: ‘Then also, why should you buy any quality, yet consumers have specific types they will buy? You stock poor-quality items that people are not willing to buy, like prematurely harvested avocado.’
He noted that there is a need to uphold agro-processing for some of the perishable products. ‘Making oil from avocado, tomato sauce from tomatoes and making juice,’ he added.
Mr Nampendo also said they have established sorting centres to have the waste decomposed into manure.
Dr Zalwango said in Kampala, there are ongoing initiatives, including sensitising communities, community clean-ups, promotion of the 3Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle), among others.
According to information from KCCA, the 3Rs are a basic environmental concept that emphasises reducing the amount of waste one generates by consuming less and being mindful of the quantity of items one buys.
Money from food waste
Ms Sharifah Buzeki, the KCCA executive director, while launching a biogas production and packaging facility by Homeklin Uganda Limited in Makindye Division in February, appealed to businesspeople to invest in plants for recycling waste.
”We have been telling people that for us as KCCA, we see value in waste, and we are telling everyone to seize the opportunity. Homeklin has seized it, and other partners can follow,” she said.
KCCA has been promoting and supporting such investment. One of them is Marula Proteen Limited, located about three kilometres from the city centre.
Mr Nathan Kayanja, the operations manager at recycling firm Marula, said they use garbage from city markets to make Protilizer organic fertiliser, which is fortified with antifungal and soil revitalising agents for better crop yield. The company sells each 50kg bag at about Shs49,000.
2,500
Kampala currently generates about 2,500 tonnes of waste per day, with organic waste (which includes food waste) constituting close to 80 percent of the total waste, states Dr Sarah Zalwango, the acting director for Public Health at Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA).