“There are not many successful plantation forestry businesses in Africa, and the number one reason is getting the finance to work,” says Patrick Mugenyi, CEO of NFC Uganda. Plantation forestry requires significant upfront investment that doesn’t produce any return for over a decade, and is seen as a risky proposition in countries like Uganda.
So far, that’s held back the development of an industry that offers huge opportunities for Uganda. With the country’s population set to double in the next 20 years, there’s massive potential to use homegrown timber in construction, as well as NFC’s core business of providing poles for the expanding electricity grid. Plantations provide jobs and economic development in rural areas, and timber can provide a good income for outgrowers like Haj – particularly in agroforestry systems that combine trees with crops and livestock, making the most of increasingly scarce land. And in a country where forest cover has fallen from around 50% to less than 8% in a few decades, well-managed plantations in the right places can help to take pressure off native forests and restore ecosystems.