Museveni to Offer Land to Indian Banana Stem Processor

President Yoweri Museveni has pledged to provide land in Mbarara to prospective Indian Investors who are proposing to set up a factory that uses banana stems to produce liquid fertilizer, thread, cloth, and biogas.

The President made the commitment on Friday while meeting the Honorary Consul of Uganda in Mumbai, India Madhusudan Agrawal at State House Entebbe. Museveni said the banana stem liquid fertilizer project heralds a great initiative that is not only great for the environment but will also lead to other products including cloth, thread, biogas production, and job creation.

In a press statement by the Presidential Press Unit, the Deputy Speaker of Parliament Thomas Tayebwa accompanied Agrawal to State House. Agarwal is also the Vice-Chairman Ajanta Pharma Ltd which is a multinational company based in India engaged in developing, manufacturing, and marketing pharmaceutical formulations.

He informed Museveni, that their research in processing banana stem enzymes to make fertilizer has already succeeded in over 30,000 farms in India and has been approved by the EU and the Indian governments.

He said they are committed to investing over US$100million into a Banana Stem processing factory in Mbarara over a 30 months period to establish a stem processing factory that will see Uganda produce 1 million liters of organic liquid fertilizer per day.

“The factory will consume about 160,000 stems per day. We also hope to get fiber for clothes and threads,” he said.

Banana is one of the most well-known and useful plants in the world with all the parts including fruit, leaves, flower bud, trunk, and stem exploited for various uses. The Banana fiber can be used to fabricate rope, threads, mats, paper cardboard, teabags, textile, absorbent, and polymer/fiber composite manure among others.