Bamboo farming is on the rise in Uganda, where the hardy and fast-growing crop is seen by the government as having real growth potential. Officials are setting ambitious planting goals as part of a broader reforestation plan in the East African nation.
In Uganda, local authorities say bamboo farming is taking pressure off dwindling forest reserves of eucalyptus and other natural resources. In Uganda, local authorities say bamboo farming is taking pressure off dwindling forest reserves of eucalyptus and other natural resources. Joseph Katumba, a caretaker at Kitara Farm, works near Mbarara, Uganda, on March 8, 2024. Katumba said the property has become something of a demonstration farm for people who want to learn more about bamboo.
“Once bamboo is established, it is almost like a net,” said Jeconious Musingwire, an environment officer who was the project’s technical advisor. “The roots trap everything, including the surface runoff, and stabilize the weaknesses of the banks.” Some of the bamboo species grown in Uganda are imported from Asia, but many — like one whose shoots are smoked and then boiled to make a popular traditional meal in eastern Uganda — grow wild.The ‘Taylor Swift effect’ aims to provide water during Brazil’s life-threatening heat wavesThe Ugandan government has set a 10-year policy that calls for planting 300,000 hectares of bamboo, most of it on private land, by 2029 as part of wider reforestation efforts.
Katumba said that’s changed, with skeptics now interested in planting bamboo “because they have studied it and they love it.” Unlike eucalyptus — a tall flowering plant widely planted here for its timber — “there is no bamboo season. The more you look after it well, weeding around it, the more and more years you will earn from bamboo.”
“Each person should actually plant bamboo, and a lot of it,” said Taga Nuwagaba, a bamboo farmer and businessman who owns a bamboo furniture factory near the Ugandan capital of Kampala. He touts the plant as a a renewable resource that sequesters carbon, too.A worker puts bamboo sticks into a dryer at a factory in Wakiso, Uganda on March 13, 2024. Bamboo farming is on the rise in Uganda, where the hardy and fast-growing crop is seen by the government as having real growth potential.
Steve Tusiime, a self-described bamboo collector, owns one such nursery in Mbarara. Tusiime said he’s been fascinated by the plant since seeing one as a boy. Before he got into growing, he recalls traveling to a farm in central Uganda to “hug” bamboo plants, and in 2018 spending his own money to attend a bamboo convention in China, where he got his first bamboo seeds.
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