Assessment of innovative market access options for banana value chain in Uganda

Smallholder banana farmers depend almost entirely on fresh banana for their livelihoods in Uganda. Similarly, other banana value chain (BVC) actors specialize in the trade of the fresh fruit for income and employment. Therefore, improving the efficiency of market access options in Uganda’s banana sub-sector is one way that banana value chain actors can benefit through the sale of their banana products. In order to achieve this, the actors need to be innovative; departing from dependence on the same product and traditional markets/approaches that limit available benefits. This paper is aimed at identifying innovative market access options among the banana value chain actors in Uganda as a basis for projecting the potential. Cross-sectional research design incorporating 240 value chain actors was employed for the study. The major innovative market access options assessed during the study were collective marketing, contract farming, mobile phone platforms, value addition options and supermarkets. The study discovered that innovative market access options such as farmer associations/collective marketing groups, use of mobile phone tools and value addition among banana actors were vital in improving market access but were underutilized. As such, there is need to develop a specific banana value chain development strategic framework in order to tap up innovations among the value chain actors and promote their diffusion across key banana growing districts in Uganda.     Key words: Market access options, banana, value chain, innovation, Uganda.