The Vegetable Oil Development Project, Phase 2, aims at increasing the domestic production of vegetable oil and its by-products, thus raising rural incomes for smallholder producers and ensuring the supply of affordable vegetable oil products to Ugandan consumers. To that end, the project will help 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 NDP and the CAADP. The IFAD interim evaluation of the ongoing Vegetable Oil Development Project highlighted the success of the project in introducing oil palm and promoting sunflower production to reduce dependency on imports. The second phase of the project will continue the partnership with Oil Palm Uganda Limited (OPUL). As the only large PPP in IFAD's portfolio, the project has demonstrated how it is possible to leverage private-sector investments through strategic use of IFAD funds.

The project will focus activities on oilseed development around four hubs (Lira, Eastern Uganda, Gulu and West Nile) covering 43 districts. Oil palm activities will be carried out on Bugula Island in Kalangala District (Ssesse islands) and new oil palm development on Buvuma Island in Mukono District. About 3,000 smallholder farmers will directly benefit from oil palm development and 136,000 households from oilseed development.

The project will be directly supervised by IFAD.

Source: IFAD