Charcoal Ban Drives Up Prices in Uganda, Putting Small Businesses in a Bind

KAMPALA, UGANDA — Gertrude Arineitwe spreads out her green polythene bag at the charcoal shelter. The charcoal seller, a woman from whom Arineitwe has bought charcoal for the past four years and who has become a friend, empties a spadeful of charcoal into the bag. Black dust wafts in the air. Soot-colored pieces fall into the bag, clanging as they land. Arineitwe watches, waiting for the seller to add more. But she doesn’t. She’s done — and the bag is only half full.

Every day for the last seven years, Arineitwe has bought charcoal to brew bushera, a popular drink made by mixing sorghum flour and hot water, then letting the mixture cool overnight. She sells it to people in her neighborhood, Nansana, a fast-growing suburb of Kampala, especially to those who hail from western Uganda where culturally the drink is a luxury in every home.

Typically, she uses two spadesful of charcoal — around 4,000 Ugandan shillings’ (1 United States dollar’s) worth — to make her day’s brew. But now the same 4,000 shillings buys only half the amount. She considered increasing her prices to compensate for the high fuel costs, she says, but her clients said they’d stop buying from her if she did. Instead, she’s decreased her bushera production. And following last year’s ban on charcoal and firewood production in northern Uganda, which has driven prices even higher, she’s unsure what she’ll do for cooking fuel.

“I am worried for the future of my business,” she says.

Over the past few years, the Ugandan government introduced incentives to lure people away from using charcoal and firewood for their cooking and toward cleaner fuels. In 2020, the government waived the value-added tax on cooking gas, and a year later it implemented bulk rates for electricity where customers can buy large amounts for lower prices. Last year it began distributing gas cylinders to residents in Mukono and Wakiso districts in central Uganda near Kampala, the capital. But despite these efforts, around 94% of Ugandan households still cook with charcoal and firewood, also known as biomass.

Then in June 2023, President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni signed an executive order banning commercial charcoal production and tree-cutting for firewood in northern Uganda, the leading supplier of charcoal in the country. The ban — an attempt to stop deforestation and reduce carbon emissions — made charcoal and firewood scarce and sparked price increases nationwide.

This left people like Arineitwe in a bind. They are unable or unwilling to switch to different and cleaner cooking methods because the startup costs are unaffordable, the options confusing, and the cooking techniques unfamiliar and incompatible with traditional Ugandan cooking. At the same time, they can’t afford enough charcoal and firewood to fulfill their needs. They are in limbo and, as a result, are forced to slow down their businesses or halt them altogether.

Alternative fuels are too costly, Arineitwe says.

The prices of charcoal and firewood are double what they used to be, she says, but it is still less expensive for her to use them than to switch to electricity, which is accessible in her region. With the price hike, it costs her 14,000 shillings (3.5 dollars) to boil the 60 liters (nearly 16 gallons) of water a day that she needs to make her bushera.

In contrast, if she were to use electricity, it would cost her over 50,000 shillings (13 dollars) per day to boil 20 liters of water (about 5 gallons), just one-third of the amount she needs, because she can’t afford to buy enough to take advantage of bulk rates.

Before the price increase, she made a profit of around 30,000 shillings (7 dollars) per week, or 120,000 shillings (31 dollars) a month selling bushera.

“The meager profits I make in the business will all be spent on electricity,” she says.

She could buy an electric pressure cooker, which uses electricity more efficiently, but they are expensive and too small to be practical, she says. And even if larger cookers were available, she couldn’t afford one.

Now she only makes bushera for returning customers when they request it, Arineitwe says, typically for an event. And she asks them to provide the firewood and flour for her to make it.

The government hopes to transition the country away from charcoal and firewood for cooking by 2030, says Solomon Muyita, spokesperson for the Ministry of Energy and Minerals Development. But high costs and distrust of the new methods are a challenge.

“The government is pushing for this program in phases since the costs involved still hold most people behind,” Muyita says.

It’s also about changing people’s mindsets, he adds.

For example, use of liquefied petroleum gas remains low despite the waived tax, Muyita says.

“People do not trust it can cook well their food,” Muyita says about biogas, adding that people also fear gas leaks, which can lead to fires and explosions if not stopped quickly.

This applies to electricity too. A person who cooks matooke — a traditional dish made from green plantains — using firewood and charcoal is used to the dish taking five hours to make. But with an electric pressure cooker, matooke will cook in 20 minutes, says Sarah Babirye, CEO of Uganda National Alliance on Clean Cooking. Many Ugandans believe matooke cooked in a traditional manner, for hours wrapped in banana leaves, is better and more delicious than matooke thrown in water and cooked for 20 minutes.

Jackline Nalule, who operates a local restaurant in Kampala’s Kalerwe suburb that customers call “Ewa Nalu” in Luganda — or “At Nalu’s,” short for Nalule — says that for the four years she’s run the restaurant, her steamed matooke has been what draws customers.

“All my customers will run away the moment they taste matooke cooked by electricity or gas,” says Nalule, who strongly believes in culture and traditions. “The flavor is completely lost when the matooke is not steamed.”

The difference is a culture shock, Muyita says. The government has awareness-raising campaigns targeted at changing public misconceptions that new methods are too expensive, dangerous and can’t cook traditional foods. Ultimately, he adds, the public needs to accept that gas and electricity are cleaner and cheaper fuels for cooking.

“They have unwarranted fears,” he says.

Until alternative fuels become more accessible and common, people will remain hesitant to use them, says Justine Akumu, senior energy officer of alternative-energy cooking at the Ministry of Energy and Minerals Development. For now, it isn’t possible for every Ugandan to switch to entirely clean cooking fuel because of the costs, she says. So they should focus on the types of cleaner fuel that are most accessible in their region or more efficient methods of cooking with biomass. For example, she says, people in Lyantonde, a district to the west of Kampala, keep cattle. They could use biogas made from cow dung. In eastern Uganda, cassava growers could use ethanol made from cassava.

People also can adopt more efficient ways of using firewood and charcoal to cook, she adds. “We advise the public to use better-energy stoves, which don’t allow for fast combustion so that less charcoal is used in cooking,” Akumu says. “And better firewood stoves which will take less wood should replace the original hearth.”

Deputy head teacher John Lwanga says St. Joseph’s Secondary School, located in Nansana, still uses firewood to cook meals for its students, despite the costs. The school feeds three meals a day to over 1,000 students, which would be too expensive with electricity. But parents will have to contribute more money in school dues to purchase firewood because of the price increase, he says.

He’s excited by the idea of using biogas at the school, he says. However, the school needs to figure out the details of a switch, such as how much it would cost and what apparatus they would need. But schools have a lot of human waste that can be turned into fuel, he adds.

“Then waste will cease to be waste,” Lwanga says.

The alternatives are confusing, says Ian Migadde, who cooks and sells beans and chapati, a type of flatbread, to evening commuters for their supper. He worries about how much it will cost to switch to a new fuel.

Nearly 15% of his monthly income goes toward paying for electricity to light his home, charge batteries, iron and watch television, he says. He fears his bill will be unaffordable if he starts to cook with it too. He’s heard about the special electricity pricing, but even if he could afford to pay in bulk, he doesn’t think it would be enough.

“I doubt it would take me through the month, given that I must cook 3 kilograms of beans every day,” Migadde says.

With charcoal double the price, he says he’s resorted to using broken furniture sold by customers as firewood. But he is sure the supply of furniture parts will run out soon.

He is failing to break even because of the high fuel costs, he says. He is thinking about putting the business on hold until the effects of the ban stabilize, with the hope that the electricity rates will be revised to be more affordable.

“I think I will take a break and return to this business when the prices are better,” he says.