By Denis Okello (denish.okello@vol.co.ug)
Alebtong
Five village supermarkets have been handed over to farmers in Northern Uganda by the government of Uganda.
The supermarkets were built by the National Agricultural Research Organization (NARO) under the Development Initiative for Northern Uganda (DINU) program with funding from the European Union (EU).
In 2020, NARO with support from the European Union in collaboration with the Office of the Prime Minister launched a UGX 25 Billion project to address poverty and malnutrition.
Under this project, farmers were encouraged to grow a variety of crops such as maize, soya beans, beans, cassava, sweet potatoes and sunflower among others.
For livestock, the project focuses on local poultry production, dairy, rabbit rearing, beekeeping and fish production.
The project districts are; Lira, Oyam, Kole and Alebtong in Lango sub-region and Pader, Nwoya, Gulu and Kitgum in Acholi sub-region.
The cooperatives managing the supermarkets which each have a capacity of 550 matrix tons of produce are; Kica Arwot in Alebtong district and Aber commercial farmers in Oyam for Lango sub-region.
In Acholi sub-region; the cooperatives are; Wacpii in Pader, Nwoya fruit farmers and Twad cooperative society in Gulu.
The stores will help farmers to store grains and sell in bulk to off takers at relatively better prices compared to the farm gate prices that are always offered to them by middle men.
Christine Achen Ayo, the chairperson of Kica Arwot cooperative society in Alebtong district and DINU ambassador, says the establishment of the village supermarket is a great milestone in enhancing agricultural production.
Acen said that they will introduce a warehouse receipt system whereby farmers will be allowed to take farm inputs, planting materials, harvest and post-harvest equipment and money on credit and repay after sale of produce.
Recently, the Director General of NARO Dr Ambrose Agona while speaking at the handover of the stores pledged that NARO will provide the farmer cooperatives with a moisture meter to test the moisture contents in grains to meet the market demand parameters.
Agona explained that the livelihood of farmers should improve now that the government has provided the farmers with the required facility.
“I want you [the farmers] to carefully select specific enterprises that are profitable and are in high demand because farmers have been walloping in poverty as a result of wrong choices of crops to plant”, Agona said.
He also urged farmers to embrace pre-season planning now that NARO had brought different consortiums on board to train farmers on productive and quality farming.
Christopher Amodo, the project officer of Solidaridad, a NARO consortium implementing the DINU project who pledged to support farmers and link them to both domestic and international markets said this is a multi-faced approach to solving the farmers’ challenges.
“We shall also train cooperatives’ leaders on agronomy, post-harvest handling, demonstration of new technology, handling of pests and diseases among others”, he said.
Amodo also revealed that there are several factors to consider like quality, bulking, value addition and quantity of harvest to promote the output businesses.
The Director of Ngetta Zonal Agricultural Research and Development Institute Dr Laban Turyagyenda asked farmers to get agronomic training from Ngetta Zardi to boost their crop yields.
The chairperson of Aber commercial farmers’ cooperative society in Oyam district Hassan Ocen is optimistic that the business hubs will positively contribute to the reduction of poverty in the region.
“I want to believe that through this initiative, farmers will have access to information, quality seeds and markets for produce”, he added.
