A government of Uganda project that seeks to ease the movement of farmers’ produce has kicked off.
Frank Tumwebaze, the Minister of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries, on Friday, July 29, flagged off the construction of the initial four farm access roads that will be part of a total of 29 Farm Access Roads to be constructed across the country.
The initial four farm access roads are to be constructed in Kamwenge, Western Uganda.
According to a statement released by the ministry on Friday, the project is a partnership between the World Bank and the Government of Uganda.
The statement added that the roads will ease access to markets “from high production centres to boost commercial agriculture for the smallholder farmers.”
This construction exercise is being implemented under the Ministry’s Agriculture Cluster Development Project.
The project is to last six years and will be implemented in 57 districts of Uganda.
According to Tumwebaze, a total of 37.6KM of farm access roads will be rehabilitated in Kamwenge District alone.
The roads are in Kamwenge (17.6km), Bwizi/Biguli (10km), Bwizi/Nkoma (5km) and Bihanga (5km) sub-counties.
“These interventions are aimed at ensuring that our farmers are not farming for the stomach and can be able to engage in trade and boost their household incomes as we have been saying under the Parish Development Model recently rolled out by the Government,” Tumwebaze explained.
Joseph Karungi, the Kamwenge LCV hailed the project, revealing that it will increase the involvement of their stakeholders in the implementation of Government programs.
“The Contractor who has been introduced to us, Tamsack Development Link Uganda Ltd, is managed by one of our own and we can follow up for efficiency in the construction and completion of the road works,” Karungi said.
Dr. Henry Nakelet Opolot, the Agriculture Cluster Development Coordinator at the ministry said the project seeks to support 450,000 farmers aggregated into 300 Area-based Commodity Cooperative Enterprises (ACCEs) comprising 3,000 Rural Producer Organizations (RPOs) constituted by 30,000 Farmer Groups.
