Written By | Staff Writer
Output in the south-west halved this year, prices climbed and Kenya came shopping. Whether farmers benefit depends on feed, water and a border that has not always been kind.
Search
Agriculture
Uganda produces about 5.4 billion litres of milk a year and consumes roughly 64 litres per person, about half the 120 litres a Kenyan drinks, according to figures reported by The Independent in September. On paper that leaves a comfortable surplus for export. In 2026, drought and foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) turned the surplus into a squeeze, sent retail prices up and, ironically, prompted Kenya to buy Ugandan milk. With the dry season easing in places and a Monitor profile on 13 October showing how small commercial farms are trying to build resilience, the question for farmers is whether the recovery will be durable or merely a rebound until the next dry season.
Most of the figures below come from reporting published in late August and September; this is an analysis of where the sector stands now rather than a single breaking event.
How far output fell
The clearest damage was in the south-west. Nile Post reported on 24 August that daily milk output in Ntungamo District had fallen to about 40,000 litres, within a range of 35,000 to 45,000, from up to 90,000 litres in rainy seasons. Before this crisis the district produced about 65,000 litres a day even in semi-dry spells. Production Officer Dr Yake Basulila said the district was "challenged and getting to our lowest". Emmanuel Arinaitwe, chairman of the Ntungamo Dairy Farmers Cooperative Union, said the drought ran from April to August, and FMD had affected cattle for about eight months. Quarantine was lifted that week in most areas, but movement and sale restrictions had already cost farmers market access and, in some cases, animals.
In Mbarara, the city's production officer Dr Moses Amanyire said daily collection had dropped from about 20,000 litres to between 5,000 and 8,000. Retail prices rose to about Shs2,500 per litre from Shs1,200. At farm gate, prices in Ntungamo were reported at Shs1,200 to Shs1,400 a litre with traders competing for scarce supply. Lakeside Dairy's quality manager Mark Wamala said intake at the factory fell from an average of 200,000 litres a day to about 120,000, and some collection centres shortened their hours. He and others also flagged a quality problem: dry conditions lowered milk density, and some traders and farmers were allegedly adding water to increase volume, which strains processors.
Kenya comes calling
On 9 September, The Independent reported that Kenya was importing milk from Uganda to cover a shortfall caused by its own long dry spell. Kenya's Trade Cabinet Secretary, Lee Kinyanjui, confirmed the imports at an event in Nakuru, saying: "Locally, we are not able to meet our demand." The Kenya Dairy Board said formal milk deliveries to processors fell 3.7 percent in July and it expects further declines in August and September.
Samson Akankiza Mpiira, managing director of Uganda's Dairy Development Authority (DDA), said nearly all dams in the cattle corridor had dried up and farmers were walking animals long distances for water and pasture. Output in the corridor normally falls 40 to 50 percent in the dry season, but this year's dry spell began in some areas in May and ran into September, well beyond the usual June-to-early-August window. Jesa Farm Dairy reported a temporary shortage of milk. Mpiira said the authority was urging farmers to store fodder and hay and expected conditions to ease where rain had arrived.
The regional context is sobering. The Independent cited the IGAD climate centre, ICPAC, as reporting that in the worst-hit parts of Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya up to 80 percent of livestock have died. Uganda's livestock mortality has been lower, partly because of more reliable water tables and natural wetlands. That is a relative advantage worth protecting, but it is not a guarantee.
A border with a memory
Dairy farmers have reason to treat Kenyan demand with caution. Between 2023 and 2025 the Kenya Dairy Board repeatedly suspended import permits for Ugandan processed and powdered milk, according to the same report. A June 2024 People Daily report said up to 114 permits for Ugandan dairy products had been denied since March 2023, that Brookside, Uganda's leading dairy processor, said the lack of permits cut off over 75 percent of its market, and that the firm had laid off half its staff in July 2023. A trade-press headline at the time warned that Uganda risked US$77.2 million in annual losses from Kenya's restrictions. Processors turned to markets such as Nigeria and Algeria, and even where restrictions were lifted exporters faced permit delays and levies.
The pattern the report describes is that Kenyan controls tighten when local production rises and ease when supply falls. That makes the current opening a function of Kenya's drought, not a settled policy change. If rains return and Kenyan farmers recover, the door could narrow again, leaving Ugandan processors that scaled up for export holding capacity they cannot fill.
The farm-level rebuild
Behind the trade headlines is a quieter question: how do ordinary farmers produce more milk per cow with less exposure to the weather? The Monitor's 13 October profile of NUTU Farm in Mitooma District offers one answer. Founder Obed Nuwamanya, 41, started developing pasture and structures in 2023 and brought in animals in 2025. The farm now has 32 cows, including Holstein Friesian, Jersey and Friesian breeds, plus 21 goats and six pigs, and it grows a spread of fodder crops such as Napier varieties, brachiaria, Chloris gayana and alfalfa. It earns on average Shs3 million a month from milk and Shs1 million from manure.
Its influence beyond the fence is the more interesting part. Training is free and averages 60 individuals and 30 group members a week, with artificial insemination experts and extension officers on staff. Since 2024, at least 10 families have taken up livestock farming; Eldard Mwesigye, who had been hesitant because of limited land, bought one cow and began artificial insemination after training. Mitooma's senior veterinary officer, Dr Godfrey Muhumuza, credits the farm with better breeds, better pasture and faster-maturing animals, although he notes that livestock numbers in the district have not risen.
The farm's own constraints are the same ones facing the wider sector. Nuwamanya says he lacks milking machines, a farm truck, tractors and irrigation, and that drought, limited pasture land and high electricity and feed costs weigh on a model that currently offers extension for free. The farm is a single data point and its income figures are self-reported, but its priorities line up with what DDA and district officers are recommending: feed storage, water harvesting and better genetics.
What it means for farmers and the economy
For farmers, this year's price spike was not a windfall. Higher retail and farm-gate prices helped those with animals still producing, but many lost cows, lost weeks of sales under quarantine or watched yields collapse. The farmers who benefit most from any recovery will be those who can feed animals through the dry months and who sell into reliable, quality-tested channels rather than to traders mixing water into volume.
For processors and the wider economy, the lesson is that a sector with 145 processing plants and a regional export niche is only as strong as its raw-milk supply. Factory intake falling by 40 percent at a large processor, as Lakeside reported, hits throughput, jobs and the ability to honour export contracts. Export growth built on drought-driven demand next door is fragile; export growth built on year-round supply and consistent quality is not.
The practical agenda is not mysterious. Officials and farmers keep returning to the same list: fodder conservation, water harvesting, disease control, artificial insemination and better genetics, and investment in processing and value addition. What is missing in the reporting reviewed is a funded national plan with dates attached. Until the dams refill and the permits are secure, Uganda's milk surplus remains something that exists on paper more reliably than in the cooler.
