A participatory rural appraisal (PRA) was carried out to identify the major constraints to rice production which have to the increased rice yield gap in Bugiri district. Two rice growing villages; Nkaiza and Bupala for upland and paddy rice, respectively were used for PRA based on two hypotheses: major constraints contributing to rice yield gap are both socio-economic and biophysical; the traditional banana-coffee crops still dominate the cropping systems. Informal discussions were held with farmers’ groups in each of the villages on issues regarding major rice constraints, existing coping mechanisms, rice production, and the existing cropping systems. The major constraints were identified and ranked in their order of importance using a pair-wise ranking tool as; water management (28.6%), soil nutrient depletion (23.8%), weeds (19.0%), labor (11.9%), pests and diseases (11.9%), poverty (4.8%) for wetland rice while weeds (33.3%), change in rainfall patterns (23.3%), soil nutrient depletion (20%), labor (16.7%), pests and diseases (6.7%) was the order of importance of constraints for upland rice. Generated coping mechanisms to the identified constraints were;draught animal power (for labor constraint),resistant varieties(insect pests & diseases), pests(bird chasing, rat traps),water management(planting at different periods), soil nutrient depletion(Fertilizer application& proper straw management), weeds(maintenance of recommended water levels, herbicide control,) changing rainfall patterns(early planting)). This information is envisaged to be useful in designing experiments to quantitatively partition the rice yield gap in an on- going study “Evaluation of the relative contribution of the rice production constraints to the yield gap in Bugiri District”.