ENTEBBE — The Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries (MAAIF) has entered a strategic partnership with Uganda National Farmers Federation (UNFFE)— a development both parties say would put farmers at the center of key government programmes.
The working partnership was flagged off by Frank Tumwebaze, the Minister of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries during an engagement held in Entebbe on Wednesday.
“This is a historic event for the farmers in this country that sets a ground for the future of the Agriculture Sector, as it lays a foundation for the participation of the farmers in the implementation of activities meant for them,” said Mr. Dick N. Kamuganga, the president of the farmers’ federation.
He added: “Never before has [there] ever been a strong partnership between the two institutions in the history of the UNFFE, which stretches from 1992.”
UNFFE is the largest Non-Governmental Farmer Organisation in Uganda. UNFFE and MAAIF have been working together before they formalised their partnership.
“I would like to inform the entire farming fraternity, that today, a new chapter for the farmers has been opened and we must embrace it for our own benefit as farmers and for the country at large,” Kamuganga said.
He added that the federation has implemented four core functions which include mobilizing farmers, organize farmers into farmer groups, area cooperatives, empower farmers through peer to peer learning platforms and also to coordinate actors within the government sector and last act as the voice for all farmers in the country.
Maj. Gen. David Kasura-Kyomukama, the MAAIF Permanent Secretary said that this would be the first of many such partnerships that would enable the Ministry reach its grass-root customers, the farmers.
He reiterated that the goal of the ministry would be to transform more farmers from subsistence to commercial agriculture by educating the farmers.
Minister of State for Animal Industry, Bright Rwamirama highlighted about the 4 areas of actualization which include: (i) collaboration between technical teams with UNFFE and Commended the Hon. MAAIF for pushing for this partnership.
“Now that we have a framework for working together with the farmers’ federation. We should make sure that as a ministry, we are working with the farmer’s leadership to make agriculture work for us all as a nation”.
Tumwebaze the partnership would help the government create a national data lab of farmers but also create a linkage between farmers and government.
He said the working relationship will focus on key strategic areas such as data collection, profiling of farmers from different regions, partnering in areas of farmer mobilization and sensitization, correct agronomic practices and also conducting of Baraazas to discuss to discuss issues affecting farmers genuinely.
“I expect them in one quarter to give us reasonable data about the profiles of each of each sub region, the dominant enterprises, the production levels, the food security situation, the constraints of the people. The kind of enterprises people understand,” Tumwebaze told reporters.
He explained that the government cannot help farmers unless it has collected such ecological specific data to help in precision planning.
UNFFE has been since been advanced with UGX.1.5 billion to start the exercise, with Tumwebaze insisting that it would bolster extension services through farmer to farmer learning.
“Our extension workers are overstretched,” he said, adding that this will close the gap. Most farmers have their traditional knowledge, which is correct knowledge. The only thing we need to add on is the new technology,” Tumwebaze said.
He said the government would entice people with idle land to each plant 100 acres of coffee and at the end of the season “we will have a very good number of coffee bags thus making use of the idle land.”
“If the farmers’ federation gets us 10,000 farmers each with 100 acres, we will give them tractors, support them with and they will give us a very good number of coffee bags,” he said, noting that the data picked by the farmers’ federation would be used to come up with interventions in the agriculture sector.
The Farmers’ Federation will be expected to come up with farming profiles of the different sub-regions and putting together the dominant enterprises in the sub-regions across the country. This partnership is tandem with Government’s initiatives of promoting both the Parish Development Model and the Agro Industrialization program which targets both the small holder farmers and the commercial farmers who will be considered as lead farmers.
The Farmers Federation will work with the Ministry in the roll out of the Farmers Barazas which will be structured to discuss the real issues on the ground in the sector.
