The revelation that East Africa risks being knocked side- ways by Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania's petition to the Eu- ropean Union to block the transit of Russian grain through the Baltic Sea should not be taken lightly. The three coun- tries are pursuing a transit ban after Russia shifted grain exports to Baltic ports thanks to its war in Ukraine making the use of the customary Black Sea and Sea of Azov routes impossibly difficult.
The downstream impact of any blockade will be particularly devastating for Uganda, with the vast bulk of its total wheat consumption sourced from Russia. The aforesaid consumption is es- timated to total up to anywhere between 650,000 and 750,000 metric tonnes, with local production assuaging under 10 per cent of national demand. While President Museveni has been dismissive of such demand, holding that wheat is not particularly a healthy thing to consume, figures show that Ugandans have an insatiable appetite for the grain.
Such is the demand that a recent data set of the Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC) placed it as the sixth most import ed product in the country.
In 2024, Uganda became the 56th largest importer of wheat in the world (out of 195 countries) after shelling out $216 million for the grain. Russia gobbled up $183 mil- lion of that figure, pointing to how it is a re- liable source of wheat supplies to Uganda. All of this underscores the need for Ugan da to seriously explore an import substitu- tion strategy. The pummelling of the Shil- ling by the US dollar makes the need for the aforesaid strategy all the more urgent. While some inroads have been made, with the National Agricultural Research Or. ganisation (Naro) developing climate-re- sistant wheat varieties, production of the grain has continued to hover around 25,000 metric tonnes. This is the proverbi- al drop in the ocean, and makes the need to diversify traditional commercial wheat farming in the country away from high-al- titude zones with cooler temperatures. The slopes of Mount El- gon and Mount Rwenzori cannot continue to do the heavy lift- ing. Mid-and low-altitude environments have to be brought into the grand scheme of things.
There should also be some serious thought put into growing the country's wheat value chain. Already, domestic millers such as Mandela Millers, Bakhresa/Azam, and Ntake have demon- strated that there can be rich dividends to adding value to the cereal grain.
To ensure that domestic millers have an abundance of the ce- real grain, the government should go out of its way to ensure that smallholder farmers start looking at wheat through the lens of a cash crop.
Farmer cooperatives would also come in handy, ensuring that land and machinery can be pooled with better farm-gate prices negotiated. All of this is hardly rocket science, but for some reason responsible authorities choose to make it just that. This ought to stop. Forthwith. Short of that, Uganda's continued reliance on Russia for its wheat supplies will have devastating effects.
No one will be spared from the effects, including the street vendor whose Ugandan rolex relies rather heavily on wheat de- spite local innovations like matooke flour being held up as glu- ten-free substitutes.