Fair to promote agro-processing

THE Uganda National Farmers’ Federation is holding its annual agricultural and trade show. The one-week show started on Monday at the Source of the Nile in Jinja and will close on Sunday. Ronald Kalyango interviewed Frank Tumwebaze, the federation’s president. Below are the excerpts...

Question: The theme for this year’s show is; ‘Promoting value-addition in agricultural production for poverty eradication.’ Why the theme?
Answer: The value chain has three components of production, processing and marketing. At all these stages farmers find different constraints which require interventions from the government. The failure to facilitate a certain stage affects the other. But for the value chain to be complete and for farmers to get maximum profits, value-addition is essential to facilitate marketing. It is an important component we need to focus on as farmer leaders. I appeal to the government to orient all its interventions in agriculture towards value addition and processing. For a long time government interventions have focused on production and yet there should be timely interventions they must pay attention to . For instance, we need to invest in water for agriculture production. We either irrigate or accept to continue experiencing massive crop failure which has resulted into famine in some parts of the country.

What is the work of the federation?
We are a private non-government organisation or a farmer’s cooperative comprising of members all over the country and our work is to lobby government and other stakeholders in the agricultural sector to offer favourable policies and interventions that benefit the farmers. We have no funds to deliver inputs or build infrastructure to facilitate marketing of the farmers’ produce. We appeal to government through the line ministry of agriculture and its lower sub-agencies of the National Agricultural Advisory Services, which does extension and inputs supply, National Agricultural Research Organisation which does research, Uganda Coffee Development Authority for coffee, Cotton Development Organisation for cotton and Parliament, which appropriates funds to the sub-sectors.

Why does the federation hold agricultural shows annually?
It is the only event which provides farmers an opportunity to interface with their fellow farmers from other regions with unique products. The show also gives farmers and agro-input dealers or manufacturers an opportunity to interface with farmers and compare technologies in irrigation, pumps, and tractors. Opportunity is also given to the government’s sectors like NAADS and NARO to exhibit their technologies and guide farmers on how to demand for services.

Do you follow up on the adoption rates of the technologies?
We work through our district associations which register the farmers. The information we have indicates that those who attend the shows integrate the technologies in their daily farming activities.
We have since discovered that farmers are now using fertilisers and improved seeds which was not the case before the agricultural shows began. As a federation we do not have funds to make follow ups, it’s the work of NAADS and NARO through their extension staff.

Teso sub-region has been hit by famine. What do you expect them to exhibit?
Teso for a long time has been exhibiting epuripur sorghum and other grains and as a result today they have a guaranteed price of sh400 from Nile Breweries. This year if they do not have anything to exhibit, the government should realise that crop failure is for real. This might be an opportune time to seriously think of introducing irrigation. Government has failed to realise that farmers depend on rain fed agriculture and that the effects of climate change are real.

Are you happy with this year’s budget allocations to the agriculture sector?
The provision of sh30bn fund for commercial farming credit if properly disbursed, farmers with good commercial enterprises will make huge steps in developing their enterprises. I think the allocation will help to fill the gap that has always existed between farmers and the lending institutions, with the proposed interest rates of 10% per annum. It is equally an exciting intervention from Government.