Uganda’s pursuit of agricultural modernization—spanning two decades of reforms, flagship programmes such as the Plan for
Modernisation of Agriculture (PMA) and the National Agricultural Advisory Services (NAADS), and a growing portfolio of digital and
mechanisation initiatives—has yielded only modest gains. Aggregate agricultural growth has averaged a mere 1.7 % per year
(2002–2009) while the structural transformation gap between farm and non-farm sectors continues to widen. This paper argues that
the slow pace is less a failure of technology or finance than the result of five critical, yet chronically overlooked, issues. First, land
tenure insecurity and persistent gender bias in ownership and inheritance keep the majority of smallholders—especially women who
produce 80 % of food crops—from making long-term productivity investments. Second, the abolition of former crop marketing boards
removed farmer credit channels without replacing them with viable rural financial instruments, leaving commercial banks structurally
averse to smallholder risk. Third, extension and research systems remain supply-driven and weakly coordinated; improved varieties
sit on shelves because seed multiplication, soil-testing and participatory dissemination have not been institutionalised
. Fourth, post-harvest losses of 20–40 % persist due to absent on-farm storage, poor rural roads and fragmented market
information—factors rarely prioritised in modernisation budgets. Finally, a deeply rooted socio-cultural mind-set continues to frame
farming as “dirty work”, deterring youth engagement and undermining public accountability in agricultural programmes. Using
synthesis evidence from policy documents, institutional analyses and micro-level case studies, we demonstrate how these blind
spots interact to stall the diffusion of even well-designed technologies. The paper concludes that Uganda’s next generation of
agricultural policies must pivot from input-centric fixes to institutional, socio-cultural and infrastructural reforms that explicitly
recognise and address these overlooked constraints.