The equipment—comprising 11 multipurpose tractors, 11 combined harvesters, and six agro-processing machines—was donated by the Republic of China in 2023 and valued at Shs74 billion.
But more than a year later, the promise of mechanised farming remains unfulfilled.
At the district yard, rice and maize processing machines sit unused. According to Butaleja District Production Officer Amina Duga, factory structures intended to house the equipment have yet to be constructed.
“We had a meeting with the Ministry of Agriculture, FAO, and other stakeholders, and they pledged to build the remaining four factory houses,” Duga said.
But the challenges run deeper. Of the 11 tractors distributed, only four remain operational. The rest are grounded due to mechanical failures, especially faulty nozzles and fuel systems.
“We failed to find spare parts on the local market. We resolved to buy them online, but the farmers can’t afford them,” Duga added.
Another major setback is the mismatch between the machinery and Butaleja’s terrain. Most of the tractors were supplied with moldboard ploughs, which easily break in the district’s swampy rice fields.
Similarly, the harvesters, designed with tires, cannot function in waterlogged paddies.
“Our harvester has tyres and can’t work in swampy fields. We would prefer chain-type machines,” said Ayub Wasige, chairperson of the Doho Rice Scheme.
As a temporary measure, some farmer groups have leased the harvesters to farmers in Northern Uganda and Busia, where upland rice farming is more feasible—and the machines reportedly perform well.
Yet in Butaleja’s Doho Rice Scheme, a government-established hub where over 4,200 smallholder farmers cultivate roughly 2,500 acres, many farmers still rely on hoes as modern machines rust nearby.
Experts warn that without urgent reforms, Butaleja’s rice could soon be priced out of the market by imports from Tanzania and Kenya.
Rachel Ajambo, team leader at Kilimo Trust Uganda and a rice expert with experience across East Africa, says the problem goes beyond idle machines.
“You can’t mechanize farming without a cropping calendar,” Ajambo stressed. “Everyone must plant, weed, and harvest in sync.”
She noted the disorderly nature of Butaleja’s farming cycle. “Here, one farmer is planting, another is harvesting, and someone else is burning straw. It’s chaos,” she said.
Ajambo highlighted the importance of water user committees, referencing Tanzania’s well-coordinated rice schemes in Kilombero, Iringa, and Kahama, where such committees enforce cropping calendars.
In contrast, Butaleja’s water management committee has collapsed.
Wilberforce Sagula, Assistant Agriculture Officer at the Doho Rice Scheme, has witnessed the region’s shifting fortunes over three decades.
He recalls that a strict cropping calendar—introduced in 1984—once defined the area’s farming seasons.
It set two distinct planting seasons: March to August and October to February, with a one-month fallow period between to rejuvenate the soil.
However, devastating El Niño rains in 1997 caused severe flooding, silted canals, and crippled the irrigation system—ultimately dismantling the orderly farming structure.
“The cropping calendar was forgotten. What followed was chaos,” Sagula recalled.
Though the government attempted to rehabilitate the scheme in 2013, the damage was done. Farmers abandoned seasonal discipline, cultivating haphazardly throughout the year.
Now, Sagula warns that many farmers grow three rice crops a year, neglecting soil health in pursuit of quick profits.
“Farmers today are more focused on immediate gains than sustainability,” he said. “Without a cropping calendar and land fallowing, soils are exhausted and yields decline. It’s a self-defeating cycle.”
Kilimo Trust is currently working to revive water user committees and reinstate cropping calendars in Butaleja.
The effort falls under its Reuse-Reduce-Recycle (3R) initiative, backed by IKEA, which promotes climate-smart agriculture to make Uganda’s rice sector self-sufficient.
The organization also advocates for high-yielding rice varieties such as the NERICA series, encourages intercropping with legumes to restore soil health, and promotes upland and regenerative rice farming to ease pressure on wetlands.
Ajambo warned that unless farmers embrace coordinated, sustainable practices, Uganda’s markets will remain flooded with cheaper, higher-quality Tanzanian rice.
“That’s why you’re eating Tanzanian rice while your own lies rotting in the fields,” she cautioned.
The failure to operationalize the Shs74 billion mechanization project in Butaleja sharply contrasts with Uganda’s Vision 2040 and National Development Plan III, which prioritise agricultural mechanization, value addition, and commercialization as engines of inclusive growth and poverty reduction.
Yet in Butaleja—one of Uganda’s key rice-producing districts—farmers remain trapped in subsistence farming due to poor planning, weak extension systems, and the absence of a functional cropping calendar.
Without urgent government action to complete infrastructure, streamline agricultural services, and enforce coordinated farming practices, this massive investment risks becoming yet another cautionary tale of wasted opportunity.
Fixing this broken system is no longer just a local concern—it is a national imperative if Uganda is to realize its development ambitions.