Vegetable Oil Development Project 2

This project aims at increasing the domestic production of vegetable oil and its byproducts, thus raising rural incomes for smallholder producers and ensuring the supply of affordable vegetable oil products to Ugandan consumers.

To that end, the project is helping farmers increase their production of crushing material (both oil palm and oilseeds) and establish commercial relations to link them directly to processors.

The project is in line with the government's National Development Plan and the Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Programme. IFAD's interim evaluation of the project's first phase highlighted its success in introducing oil palm and promoting sunflower production to reduce dependency on imports. The second phase continues the partnership with Oil Palm Uganda Limited to further promote small-scale growers. The project has demonstrated how it is possible to leverage private-sector investments through strategic use of IFAD funds.

Project activities focus on oilseed development around four hubs (Lira, Eastern Uganda, Gulu and West Nile) covering 43 districts. This component is cofinanced by SNV Netherlands Development Organization for a total amount of US$ 0.3 million. Oil palm activities are carried out on Bugula Island in Kalangala District (Ssesse islands) and Buvuma Island in Mukono District. In the course of the project, about 3,000 smallholder farmers will directly benefit from oil palm development and 136,000 households from oilseed development. The project is directly supervised by IFAD.