By Umar Nsubuga
Twaha Kakooza, a commercial farmer in Kayunga district says while harvesting, farmers should put more emphasis on quality, not quantity.
With the drive to export our produce, he says it is important to ensure that farmers market the best quality products.
“On most occasions, farmers unknowingly promote poor-quality products into the market. Often, farmers do not realise that the products they send to the local market could end up in a supermarket chain in Kampala or abroad,” he says.
Isaac Malinga, the director of Maikut Farm who also exports goods, says farmers must handle their harvest with maximum care.
“Apart from the flower growers most other producers in the short term have to depend on production from small-scale subsistence farmers. Unfortunately, small-scale farmers are not only poor but are the least literate,” Malinga says.
At present, apart from crops like vanilla, the quality of the subsistence-cultivated crops is left to the mercy of the farmer and the middlemen.
“The middlemen are normally profit-motivated and often end up adding foreign matter to the produce, further worsening the quality of produce,” he says.
Malinga says in many instances it is sheer ignorance by the farmers that causes the poor-quality product. Take livestock farmers as an example.
He adds that many of them constantly beat animals, especially cattle as they take them to graze or drink water. Little do they realise that beating animals adversely affects the quality of the hides and skins of the animals.
