By Peter Abaanabasazi
Farmers in Kikuube district have been asked to embrace value addition if they are to benefit from agriculture.
District chairperson Peter Banura says the Government has put in efforts to see that farmers embrace value addition to be able to benefit from agriculture.
He explains that the Government, through the Agriculture Cluster Development Project (ACDP), supported organised farmers with maize, melt and cassava processing machines to see that farmers stop selling raw produce.
Banura says all this effort is aimed at moving farmers from selling their crops to middlemen and selling in the garden and making money for their social economic transformation.
He made the call on Friday at Kikuube district headquarters while handing over solar dryers, vacuum sealers and pedal sealers worth sh22 million to 12 vegetable farmer groups in Kikuube district.
Banura said value addition is the way to go for those involved in agriculture. According to him, without value addition to agricultural products, farmers will remain suffering from poverty.
Arthur Turyatunga, a member of the Kikuube mentorship vegetable farmers group, commended the Hoima district production department for supporting the farmers, adding that his group is engaged in cabbage growing and fruits.
According to him, they have been selling their produce without processing.
He noted that now they have solar dryers, they will be able to add value to the fruits and vegetables and get good money.
Jane Birungi, a member of the Kamusunsi mentorship vegetable farmers group, said the donation of the machines comes at the right time, adding that they would make losses as their produce (vegetables) rot due to lack of a machine to dry them.
She was optimistic that now the district has supplied them with solar dryers, the losses which they have been making are going to be no more.
However, she called on the district to lobby for a market, adding that the big challenge faced by vegetable farmers is the market.
Samuel Kusiima Kahesi, the Kikuube district principal agriculture officer, called on farmers to properly use the machines adding that the initiative will help to answer the challenge of food waste during bumper harvesting.
He noted that the initiative of offering farmers these machines to take forward the government programme of promoting agro-industrialisation and helping the farmers to manage their harvest adding farmers make a lot of losses due to lack of machines to manage their produce especially when they get bumper harvests.
PHOTO CAPTION: Peter Banura, the Kikuube district chairperson posing for a photo with farmers after they (farmers) receivibg machines. Photo by Peter Abaanabasazi
