Performance of pulses and sesame value chains in Eastern Uganda

Pulses and sesame constitute important nutritional and nutraceutical benefits providers and smallholder house-hold income generating sources in eastern and northern Uganda. In spite of their increasing demand locally, regionally and internationally, limited progress has been registered in commercialization of production especially in Eastern Uganda. Hence, a study involving a cross section of farm households, traders, farmer groups and key in-formants selected using multi-stage respondent driven and random sampling blended criteria was carried out to analyse the performance of the pulses and sesame value chains. Qualitative and quantitative data were generated and analysed to provide individual and community perceptions on the value chain activities and actors as well as the technical and financial performance of the value chain. Descriptive and gross margins analyses were carried out. Findings showed that value chain actors comprised of individual smallholder farmers, farmer groups, traders as well as government and non-government organisations that played a facilitating role. Sesame, beans, cowpeas, greengram and pigeon peas are grown by 58, 29, 28, 47 and 10% of the households, respectively. Land al-located to sesame, beans, cowpeas, greengram and pigeon pea production, on average was 1.45, 1.02, 0.88, 1.01 and 0.71 acres per household, respectively. Due to limited knowledge, information and skills for use of improved crop production technologies and techniques, farmers produced local and earlier accredited varieties. Although farmers registered poor harvests during the season under study (first season of 2021) their average output levels were quite good; 158, 152, 87, 103 and 36 kilograms per acre for sesame, beans, cowpeas, greengram and pigeon, respectively. Specifically, Amuria farmers realized higher sesame and cowpea output, while Kalaki farmers realized higher beans output. Profitability analysis results showed that greengram was the most profitable crop followed by sesame, beans and cowpeas, respectively. Sesame fetched the highest price in the market, but its pro-duction was relatively costly. Farmers obtained the lowest net marketing margin share in the production of processed sesame, but high net marketing margin shares in the production of cowpeas, greengram and beans. Be-sides, actors within and across value chain components operated independently implying that the value chains are fragmented. Strategies for unlocking the potential of pulses and sesame enterprises, therefore, lie in improving technologies and pertinent information dissemination coupled with institutionalization of actors for strategic net-working and collaboration for sustainable value chains development. Key words: productivity, profitability, pulses, value chain, Uganda