Overview
Ugandans have been feeding on Bananas (matooke) for so many years. According to estimates, over 10 million tones are produced every year. It is also estimated that at least 10million people feed on bananas as their main food in Uganda and many more feed on it across the region. However, there is a lot of wastage of the banana.
Experts say that for many years, the fact that the banana was only eaten as a direct food meant that a lot of it was wasted. This is what the president wanted to stop when he set up the Presidential Initiative on Banana Industrial Development (PIBID). His aim was to help the banana sector turn the banana into a more valued food-by processing it into other products.
When PIBID was set up in 2005, the President of the Republic of Uganda was named as the patron of the body. It is governed by a Board and Management Committee. Other major collaborators include professionals, private and public sectors and farmers.
The group’s main areas of focus are Value addition & Quality control operations, Marketing & Rural enterprise debt, Production.
The Vision of PIBID is to establish state-of-the-art banana processing enterprises in Uganda, producing value-added matooke products with competitive market strength both locally and globally, manned by rural farmers/entrepreneurs.
The mission is to offer rural farmers technical/scientific services, outreach and Research & Development opportunities in:
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