By Abdulkarim Ssengendo
Over 500 youth and women have been equipped with skills in dairy farming as a business and value addition, especially in making yoghurt and other milk products.
The majority of the youth were from districts of the western region. The training was conducted by AGDI Dairy Farm located in Kiruhura district.
Speaking to the New Vision, Col Dick Bugingo, the director of AGDI Dairy Farm, said the training attracted trainees from Primary seven to university levels and it was intended to enable the youth and women to create employment through value addition.
The 1-2 months training was conducted by experienced trainers, some from different universities contracted by AGFI Farm Training Centre.
Bumwa Janet, a trainer and a lecturer at Bishop Stuart University and Nicholas Rugambwa, the head of the value addition department at AGDI Dairy Farm believe the acquired skills have empowered the trainees to create employment and even employ others in their communities.
They were given DIT certificates after training.
According to Bugingo, they have plans to offer more courses in ghee and butter making, organic fertilizers and all other milk products.
“Due to unemployment which is affecting the whole country, they have seen it important to equip young Ugandans with skills that can help them start their own business to support their families,” Bugingo added.
Bugingo, one of the inaugural winners of the Best Farmers competition in 2014 advised youth who finish university to go for short courses in value addition.
Bugingo disclosed that his farm has already trained over 2000 people at his Training Centre and they all did DIT examinations.
He said he wants to recruit more experienced experts to offer more courses in different agriculture fields.
“In 2019-2022, I started training people how to do farming as a business, now I am skilling them in value addition. I also want to introduce more courses in different agriculture fields,” Bugingo added.
He thanked different organizations that are supporting him including the Vision Group and the Netherlands Government that took him to the Netherlands where he acquired valuable skills in farming.
He also thanked OPM offices that are supporting him to train refugees with skills in farming.
Bugingo advised farmers to have good farming practices that include good feeding, proper hygiene, record keeping, and good farm management among others.
