Indicative economic assessments included the use of gross sales for the raw material (farm gate) and ethanol. Annualized sugarcane net sales were compared to household annual expenditures to allow assessment of cane contribution to household income. Integration of commodity prices gives insight on the potential contribution of bio-fuels to household poverty alleviation and overall development of rural areas.

3. Results

3.1. Suitability

The agro-ecological settings favor the growing of sugarcane with a potential 10,212,757 ha (49.6%) at a marginal level of production with 2,558,698 ha (12.4%) land area potentially not suitable for cane production. Although the current production is far below the potential production "in [12]", the related cane production is 908,935,330 and 60,769,069 tons respectively. It is also evident that there is possibility of increasing production through expansion of land area under sugarcane.

1. Suitability of sugarcane production and conflict visualization between food crops and gazetted areas in Uganda

The marginal productivity of cane in Uganda is a function of Rainfall amount and the atmospheric temperature. Nevertheless the average optimum yields (89 ton / ha) at marginal level of productivity are comparable to yields of 85 ton / ha in a commercialized production in Brazil "in [13] ".

Expanding acrage under sugarcane is likely to increase pressure on gazetted biodiversity rich areas including wetlands with consequent potential loss of bio-diversity.

Sugarcane and maize (food crop) have similar ecological requirements, presenting a situation of high potential land-use conflict as 49.6 % of arable land can be grown with both sugarcane and food crops (figure 3 i). Figure 3 ii), shows 14 % of the land where sugarcane has potential conflict with gazetted areas of which 4.3 % has potential conflict with forest reserves.

Sugarcane, given its energy balance advantage, is likely to be beneficial if promoted as bio­fuel feedstock as this is likely to increase sugarcane prices to the benefit of the small scale farmer.