Home Funded Projects A new amaranth value chain — and a wheat-free flour on the market
Transforming Agriculture
A new amaranth value chain — and a wheat-free flour on the market
A whole value chain rebuilt around grain amaranth — putting a nutritious, wheat-free flour onto Ugandan shelves.
Grain amaranth is cheap, drought-resistant and far more nutritious than wheat — but supply was too unreliable to use. This project fixed the entire chain.
The challenge
Malnutrition is widespread in Uganda, driven partly by diets built on imported wheat flour that is expensive and low in nutrients. Grain amaranth ('dodo') is a nutritious, drought-resistant alternative.
But its quality and supply were so unreliable that Uganda's largest flour companies once launched amaranth products — then withdrew them for lack of steady raw material.
The approach
Makerere's Department of Food Technology & Nutrition, drawing on a decade of amaranth research, worked across the whole value chain at once: training farmers to raise the quantity and quality of grain, refining and scaling up a multi-purpose amaranth-enriched composite flour for everyday foods.
Crucially, it built a multi-stakeholder platform — a nucleus farm, out-grower farmers, and a commercial food processor — to keep supply steady from field to shelf.
There is now a cheaper yet healthier alternative to wheat on the market.
Results & impact
There is now a cheaper, healthier alternative to wheat on the market. The team built the processor's capacity all the way through to UNBS certification, raised consumer awareness, and set up a coordinating platform for the chain.
That makes the fast-growing roadside food business more viable, and creates income for the youth and women who vend it.
This research was funded by the Government of Uganda through the Makerere University Research and Innovations Fund — one of a growing directory of projects turning national investment into real-world results.
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