Banana farmers in Rwampara District are confronting a troubling and as yet unidentified disease that is damaging plantations and casting a shadow over harvests in one of the Ankole sub-region’s most productive matooke-growing areas.
The disease, whose cause has not been established, manifests as premature browning of banana fingers before the fruit reaches harvest maturity while rendering affected crops unmarketable and cutting into farmer incomes at a time when the district’s agricultural output is closely watched as a regional food supply indicator.
Cases have so far been detected in Kitooha Parish and Nyabikungu Parish, both within Bugamba Sub-county, though the full extent of the spread remains unclear as affected farmers and local agricultural officials work to assess the scale of the outbreak.
Rwampara District is among the leading matooke producers in the Ankole sub-region, making the emergence of an undiagnosed plant disease particularly consequential. Matooke, a cooking banana that forms a dietary staple across much of Uganda supports the livelihoods of thousands of smallholder farmers in the area and any sustained damage to production carries implications that extend well beyond individual farm gates.
Authorities have not yet issued a formal response or identified the pathogen responsible. Farmers in the affected parishes are calling for urgent intervention from agricultural extension services and plant health specialists to diagnose the disease and prevent further spread across the district’s plantations.
