Participatory exploration of transformative pathways for the cooking banana value chain in Uganda

Cooking banana is one of the main staple foods in Uganda. Over the past decades, intensified banana cultivation has concentrated in southwestern Uganda. Farmers value the commercial importance of the crop, but with declining soil fertility, dwindling natural resources and increasing drought incidence in the face of climate change, the sustainability of the system is questionable. In western Uganda, which is endowed with better rainfall and soil fertility, banana is part of a more diverse farming system. However, also here increasing population pressure and developing markets are driving a transformation of the system. To unpack the uncertainties in future developments we conducted a scenario analysis to assess current and future sustainability of these contrasting systems and explored synergies and trade-offs across four sustainability domains.