🇺🇬 The cattle breeds of Uganda

Uganda's cattle are mostly indigenous animals, raised by herding communities and well suited to local conditions. Milk is at the heart of their work: since the early 2000s the dairy trade has grown from smallholders selling raw milk into a processing industry that exports to Kenya and far beyond.

• Milk output rose from 1.8 billion litres in 2012 to an estimated 5.3 billion by mid-2024.
• Central and Western Regions together supply about half of Uganda's milk.
• Only about a third of marketed milk is processed; the rest is sold raw.
• Per person milk drinking rose from 25 litres in 1986 to 62 litres in 2017.
• Taming tick-borne disease in exotic cattle could lift exports towards US$500 million a year.

Cattle in Uganda

Cattle keeping in Uganda revolves around milk. The dairy trade is young: since the early 2000s it has grown from smallholders selling unprocessed milk into an industry with many processing plants across the country. Most of the national herd consists of indigenous breeds, shaped by local weather and by the customs of the herding communities that keep them. Exotic, imported breeds give more milk but cannot cope with these conditions, so most farms keep mixed animals whose yield sits between the two. Livestock's share of the economy grew from a revised 3.2 percent to 9 percent of GDP by 2014. Ugandan milk now reaches neighbours such as Kenya, binding herders into a wider regional trade.

Regions and communities

Dairy herds are concentrated in the southwest, the centre and the northeast, with the Central and Western Regions together supplying about half of the nation's milk. Those areas produce steadily through the year. The north, northeast and east behave differently: once the dry season sets in, milk yields there fall sharply. Across these rural areas the trade matters for jobs, nutrition and cash income. The state underpins it through the Dairy Development Authority, a regulator created by a 1998 act of parliament and at work since 2000.

Milk, butter and beef

About 80 percent of the milk produced goes to market, with farming households drinking the remainder. Of the milk sold, only about a third is processed; the other two thirds change hands as raw milk. Plants turn raw milk into milk powder, yogurt and butter for sale at home and abroad. Per person milk drinking stood at 62 litres in 2017, having been just 25 litres back in 1986. Exports reach Kenya, Egypt, Japan and the United Arab Emirates, among others, and large supply deals have been discussed with Algeria and Nigeria.

Today

Milk output has climbed fast: about 1.8 billion litres a year in 2012, 2.2 billion in 2018, 3.85 billion by January 2024, and the head of state put it at 5.3 billion by mid-2024, far above the roughly 800 million litres Ugandans drink. Export earnings reached about US$264.5 million in the year to January 2024. Installed processing capacity stood near 1.4 million litres a day in 2017. The old national milk monopoly was privatised in 2006, with the state keeping a minority share.