By Joshua Kato
The 2024 National Housing and Population Census kicked off last week. Beyond counting the houses and the people occupying them, one of the objectives of the exercise is to identify what people are doing for a living.
It is, therefore, important that when the enumerators ask you what you are doing for a job, tell them that you are a farmer.
This information is important to the development of the agriculture sector because it will be used for planning purposes.
It is also important that you register and certify your products with the Uganda National Bureau of Standards.
As issues of quality/quantity of farm produce supplied around the country continue drawing more attention, registered and certified farmers may soon be the only ones allowed to supply foods to institutions, such as schools and hospitals.
And yet, it is well known that many schools in the country are directly supplied by farmers. Incidentally, majority of these farms are not registered, irrespective of the fact that they produce quality fresh and dried food. Of course, some schools buy foods through middlemen.
So, for a farmer to qualify for certification to supply schools, the farm must be registered and traceable. Farm registration has many other advantages, including access to financing from financial institutions and tax waivers just in case a farmer is acquiring farm equipment.
Registration and certification will give your farm an identity that goes beyond the village, the district or even country.
This is because when you register, you further improve by also branding your produce and if it is of good quality, it will be traced back to you.
Nothing makes a farmer happier than getting positive feedback about their products.
The registration process is easy, since you first register as a business through the Uganda Registration Bureau Services, then register with the district production officer as a farm.
