| Sumario: | Land degradation and low agricultural productivity are severe problems in Uganda. Although Uganda’s soils were once considered to be among the most fertile in the tropics (Chenery 1960), problems of soil nutrient depletion, erosion, and other manifestations of land degradation appear to be increasing. The rate of soil nutrient depletion is among the highest in Sub-Saharan Africa (Stoorvogel and Smaling 1990), and soil erosion is a serious problem, especially in highland areas (Bagoora 1988). Land degradation contributes to the low and in many cases declining agricultural productivity in Uganda. Farmers’ yields are typically less than one-third of potential yields found on research stations, and yields of most major crops have been stagnant or declining since the early 1990s (Deininger and Okidi 2001).
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