By Publicist East Africa
Uganda’s agricultural future is increasingly being shaped by a new generation of women who are proving that agribusiness extends far beyond farming. They are building enterprises, creating markets, influencing policy, advancing technology, and transforming agricultural waste into globally competitive products.
This week, Publicist East Africa recognises five exceptional women whose work exemplifies the spirit of our Lionesses of Industry series. Though their enterprises operate in different value chains, they share a common purpose: creating sustainable businesses that improve livelihoods while strengthening Uganda’s position within Africa’s evolving agrifood economy.
Together, they represent a new model of agribusiness leadership where innovation, inclusion, climate resilience, and commercial success reinforce one another.
Noela Victoria Ojara – building Uganda’s root crop economy
Few entrepreneurs have done more to elevate Uganda’s cassava and sweet potato value chains than Noela Victoria Ojara, Founder and Managing Director of Divine Organic Foods under the Amaro Foods brand.
Working across Northern and Eastern Uganda, Ojara has built an enterprise that directly engages thousands of smallholder farmers while extending improved planting materials, market access, and technical support to tens of thousands more.
Her influence extends beyond business. As a member of Uganda’s National Cassava Taskforce and a 2025 AWARD Gender Agrifood Systems Policy Fellow, she demonstrates how private enterprise can shape national agricultural policy. Her work reflects a leadership philosophy where commercial growth, nutrition, women’s empowerment, and policy reform are mutually reinforcing rather than competing priorities.
Juliet Kakwerre Tumusiime – Turning agricultural waste into global opportunity
Innovation sometimes begins with seeing value where others see waste.
That is precisely what Juliet Kakwerre Tumusiime achieved when she transformed discarded banana stems into biodegradable hair extensions through Cheveux Organique.
What was once agricultural waste has become an internationally recognised export product reaching markets in Europe and North America while creating income opportunities for thousands of rural women.
Her business challenges traditional assumptions about agribusiness. It demonstrates that Uganda’s agricultural economy is not limited to food production alone. Agricultural by-products can also become the foundation of globally competitive manufacturing industries built on sustainability and innovation.
Jovia Kisakaye – building a circular bioeconomy
Where others saw spoiled milk and food waste, Jovia Kisakaye saw opportunity.
Through Ecobed Biotech Brand, she has developed innovative products ranging from mosquito-repellent skincare to organic fertilisers and animal feed while simultaneously reducing environmental waste and supporting climate-smart agriculture.
Her work illustrates how circular economy principles can address multiple development challenges simultaneously, including youth employment, food waste, public health, and environmental sustainability.
Her growing continental recognition reflects an entrepreneur whose influence extends well beyond Uganda’s borders.
Elizabeth Nalugemwa – rewriting Uganda’s coffee story
Coffee remains Uganda’s largest export, yet many women who produce it continue to receive the smallest share of its value.
That reality inspired Elizabeth Nalugemwa to establish Kyaffe Coffee Farmers.
Rather than accepting traditional value chains, she built a business model centred on direct relationships with women farmers, fair pricing, and value addition. Through Kyaffe and her Seedloans initiative, Nalugemwa continues to demonstrate that financial inclusion and market access are just as important as agricultural productivity.
Her journey from a coffee-growing household to an Obama Foundation Leader illustrates how personal experience can become the foundation for structural change across an entire industry.
Shifra Ainomugisha – The future of climate-smart agriculture
At just 29 years old, Shifra Ainomugisha represents the next generation of African agribusiness leadership.
Through Solafam Uganda, she combines solar-powered irrigation, cold storage, and artificial intelligence to help smallholder farmers reduce post-harvest losses, improve productivity, and increase incomes.
Her recognition as the 2026 Commonwealth Young Person of the Year signals not only personal achievement but also growing international confidence in African-led agricultural innovation.
Her work demonstrates that tomorrow’s agricultural leaders will be as comfortable with technology and data as they are with farming itself.
A new generation of institution builders
What unites these five women is not the products they manufacture or the crops they work with.
It is the institutions they are building.
Collectively, they are strengthening value chains, creating employment, mentoring entrepreneurs, influencing policy, improving nutrition, promoting climate resilience, expanding exports, and generating new opportunities for women and young people across Uganda.
Their businesses illustrate the remarkable diversity emerging within Uganda’s agribusiness sector. Cassava, bananas, coffee, food waste, solar technology, artificial intelligence, and circular economy solutions all now form part of a broader agricultural transformation that is increasingly driven by innovation rather than production alone.
They also demonstrate that Africa’s agricultural future will not be built solely through increased yields.
It will be built by leaders capable of connecting farmers to markets, science to enterprise, waste to value, and innovation to opportunity.
Why they are lionesses of industry
At Publicist East Africa, the Lionesses of Industry series recognises women whose influence extends beyond the organisations they lead.
These are leaders who build industries, strengthen institutions, create opportunities, and inspire future generations.
Noela Victoria Ojara, Juliet Kakwerre Tumusiime, Jovia Kisakaye, Elizabeth Nalugemwa, and Shifra Ainomugisha each embody that philosophy in different ways.
Their journeys remind us that modern agribusiness is no longer defined by production alone. It is increasingly driven by leadership, innovation, value addition, technology, and the courage to solve problems others overlook.
As Uganda positions itself as an agricultural powerhouse, these five women are helping redefine what leadership in agriculture looks like.
They are not simply growing crops, they are growing industries.
Editorial Notice; Publicist East Africa’s Captains of Industry is an independent editorial recognition series highlighting leaders making exceptional contributions to business, public policy, innovation, and economic transformation across Africa. Selection is based on editorial research and publicly available information, supplemented where possible by interviews with the featured leader or their organisation. Inclusion reflects editorial judgement alone, it is not paid, sponsored, or solicited, and does not constitute endorsement of any individual, organisation, product, or service. Every reasonable effort is made to verify accuracy; corrections are welcomed and will be promptly addressed.
