By HERBERT MUSOKE
According to Dr Samuel Mugasi, NAADS Executive Director, the Harvest Money Expo, provides a platform for agricultural stakeholders to share relevant information that can propel growth and development of the sector and country’s economy.
NAADS are among the sponsors of the expo. Mugasi stressed that this expo being the biggest in Uganda and East African region, brings together all the stakeholders to share knowledge and information that will foster agricultural transformation.
“Information is key in any critical decision making. The expo brings farmers, buyers, exporters and processers among others in the same place and we share with them what we have because our main job is to give farmers information vital for better performance,” he says. The Expo is organized by Vision Group in partnership with the Embassy of the Netherlands. Sponsors include NAADS, Engineering Solutions (ENGSOL), dfcu Bank, Koica aand Technoserve.
Working with private sector
Dr. Magasi says that NAADS signed a memorandum of understandding with the Private Sector Foundation to attract private investors into the agricultural sector value chain.
He explains that agriculture presents numerous opportunities across the value chain that the private investors can tap into and establish sustainable, successful and profitable business.
He adds that, NAADS wants to use the opportunity of the thousand of people who visit the Harvest Money Expo to share with possible investors the business opportunities across the agriculture value chain which is why they came on board as gold sponsors of the Expo.
“Agriculture doesn’t start with farmers and end with buyers just as many thinks. There are a lot of supplies like fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides, storage and packaging machinery, materials and facilities. Also, services like extension, transport, aggregation, cold rooms and value addition among others are needed for productivity and quality assurance,” he explains.
He shows gratitude to the Vision group for the biggest Expo of the region where institutions like NAADS can meet huge numbers of people to with them important aspects of agricultural production that many seem to ignore.
“We want investors to start looking at agriculture as a profitable sector that can invest into just as how they invest in other sectors. We want to see private extension service providers, fertilizer producers, feed processors, Warehouse (cold-room) operators among others,” he stressed.
He says that, this will attract more people into the sector by creating jobs, changing the incomes of households, increase the tax base for the country thus transforming the economy into the middle status.
NAADS’s vision is to ensure socio-economic transformation through agriculture and in so doing, NAADS has been supporting farmers across the country especially the less privileged or the vulnerable to ensure that they are food secure.
To ensure this, NAADS has distribution of hybrid seeds for maize, beans, soya bean, sorghum, oil seed, fruit trees like citrus, mangoes, tea seedlings, cassava cuttings, coffee, Banana suckers and pineapple suckers among others and livestock like heifers and chicken to farmers across Uganda for both food security and income generation.
“Even now that we have scaled down because of the interventions by the parish Development Model, farmers have already appreciated quality seed and they can now sustain their own planting requirements which is why Uganda has been food secure for some time,” he says.
Promoting high value crops
Of recent, NAADS, has started promoting high value crops like Hass avocado, cashew nuts and Macadamia which are not traditional crops but have gained international demand and as a country there is need to diversify because the traditional cash crops like coffee, tea and cotton have been constrained by climatic changes yet these crops can perform well.
Dr. Mugasi says that for that information about the promotion will also be shared with those interested into venturing in growing them.
“We have the mandate to promote the high value crops. At out stall, we will share all the critical information about where and how to access quality planting materials, agronomic practices among others,” he says.
In the last planting season, NAADS distributed 140, 000 seedlings of macadamia to farmers across the country where all the beneficiary farmers have paid 30% of the cost of the seedlings while Government through NAADS has paid 70%.
On the market, a macadamia seedling costs between sh10, 000 and sh11, 000 and thus NAADS pays sh7, 000 and the farmer pays shs3, 300 which is affordable to farmers.
“We have moved away from distributing free planting materials and adopted the cost sharing approach because it helps to avoid wastage of materials, promotes ownership by farmers and sustainability of the intervention,” explains Dr. Mugasi
Beneficiaries
Julius Bigabwa of Biglad Agro tourism farm in Kabarole district one of the Vision group’s best farmer winners, is one of the commercial Macadamia with 9 acres he has planted with help from government.
Bigabwa says that he currently has 9 acres of Macadamia with government subsidizing on the cost of the seedlings by 70% with plans of acquiring more land to increase on the acreage.
According to Bigabwa, Macadamia is harvested by picking the only dropped fruits because if they are picked from the tree, you can take the immature ones which will give you poor quality.
He says that a well-managed macadamia tree, can yield up to 160kgs and the average is 100kgs per a tree a season (after removing the top cover) because macadamia fruits all year round. Each kilogram is sold at sh5, 000 meaning that you will get sh500, 000 par a tree.
“For every 4kgs of shelled seeds sold at sh5, 000 per a kilogram, will get 1kg of clean seeds sold as nuts at sh100, 000. Here you will get 25kgs of clean seed equating to sh2.5m.
At the ends of the value chain, he packages other products like macadamia oil and butter and cracks. “We package in 50gms and sell mainly in the bars at sh10, 000,” he says, adding that, the, shells can be used as firewood thus saving the environment from cutting down the trees for fuel.
Dr. Mugasi says that Macadamia is the most popular and expensive nut in the world today with an oil content of up to 67% with increasing demand in European countries, Middle East and China,” he explains.
Working with nucleus farmers
Dr. Mugasi explains that in order to actualize the intervention, Government has adopted the Nucleus Farmer Partnership strategy. Under this strategy, NAADS has partnered with eight large scale producers of the two crops to enable and enhance access to quality planting materials of macadamia and Hass avocado nurseries to the small holder farmers/out-growers.
Through this strategy, the small holder farmers access the relevant agricultural support services including extension, research and technology, storage, processing and value addition, market information and market for produce, financial and insurance from the big producers.
The eight nucleus farmers include Amafh Farm, Besmark Coffee company ltd, Njojo farm, Royal plants and nurseries, Humuza Agro processors and exporters group, Musubi Farm,
Avocare and Kanyisa farm.
This strategic intervention is being implemented under a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). Parties to the MOU include, NAADS Secretariat, the Nucleus Farmer/Farm, and the District Local Government in which the Nucleus farmer is located and has a concentration of activities for the out growers.
Don’t miss Harvest Money Expo
He there for calls upon all Ugandans to come for Expo in big numbers as there is a lot of information and opportunities to share that can change one’s life. “The Expo brings together all sector players from farmers, government agencies and institutions, financial institutions, machinery and buyers among others,” he says.
The Harvest money Expo is scheduled to take place starting on Friday February 22nd and end on Sunday February 25th with a number of trainings organized for the three days. Entrance is sh10, 000 and additional sh10, 000 for those who wants to be trained.
