By Herbert Musoke
The ministry of Agriculture, animal industry and fisheries has stored over 7000 local seed varieties to promote indigenous food growing in Uganda.
Gidion Samba the laboratory technician at the National Agricultural Research Organization (NARO) explains that the government through NARO has come up with a system through which they are keeping seeds of indigenous foods for future use.
“We now have over 7000 local food crop seeds which were at a threat of getting extinct. These are kept safe at the national seed bank where we keep both seed and plasm. Other seeds are kept (grown) at Entebe Botanical Garden especially those that can’t be kept under the frozen temperatures,” he says.
During Agroecological Market system Expo, held at Hotel Africana in Kampala, he explained to the farmers who visited their stall that the government has plans of expanding the seed bank by next year to capture other spices like trees, herbs among others.
“For now, whoever wants a particular food crop seed, can go the seed bank in Entebe and file on their request and the seed will be availed because the bank has enough seed,” he says.
