DOING GOOD IS GOOD BUSINESS: How Nile Breweries is financially empowering women farmers in Uganda while securing sustainable barley supply to feed growing demand

Nile Breweries Limited is Uganda’s largest beer brewer. To sustain, such a large operation, for its production and brewing activities, the company depends on high-quality crops, such as barley produced by farming communities across Uganda, many of whom are female.   The company, according to Theunis Coetzee, the Agriculture Manager, Nile Breweries, uses up to up to 98% local material in beer production. Prior to 2018, barley output was unable to meet the manufacturing requirement of the business. That is why around 2008/2009 the company started a deliberate programme to improve barley farming albeit on a small scale, under Kapchorwa…