By Jovita Mirembe& Agnes Nantambi
Lack of a proper value chain system in the manufacturing of Animal feeds has been identified as the major cause of poor animal feeds on the African Continent, an African Union senior programs officer has said.
Dr. Annie Kigezo explained that the African Union assessed the status of feed and fodder in Africa last year and established that there are so many gaps not only in Uganda.
“The value chain is very disintegrated; people are playing various roles in the value chain but the stake holders are not working together, an indication that the value chain is not functioning,” she said.
Currently she said that through the resilient African feed and fodder systems ( RAFFS) project ,they are trying to bring the key stake holders together to form a Multi- stake holders’ platform to ensure that all the prayers are linked together.
“We want to ensure that all the players are linked together, the producers of whatever feeds will be linked to the input suppliers while the producer will be linked to people who add value as those adding value are linked to the market,” she said.
She said that the African Union -InterAfrican Bureau for Animal Resources (AU-AIBAR) is working towards ensuring that farmers capacity is built to understand the value chain and also minimize loses in the feed and fodder value chain.
“After building the capacity of all the stake holders with key players, we will not have losses in the manufacturing of animal feeds because we will have bridged the gap of non coordination of stake holders in the manufacturing process,” she explained.
Kigezo said this during the stake holders workshop for the Resilient African Feed and fodder systems ( RAFFS) project held at Hotel Africana in Kampala 11 march.
The project is currently being implemented in six pilot countries which include Uganda, Kenya, Somalia, Nigeria, Zimbabwe and Cameroon.
The project is aimed at ensuring that the value chain system can be efficient through educating stake holders in the animal manufacturing processes and how they can use good mechanisms of manufacturing animal feeds in a more organized way without leaving gaps in the system.
Dr. Theophilus Mwesige the commissioner Animal production, Ministry of Agriculture Animal Industry and Fisheries (MAAIF) said that wastage in the manufacturing of animal feeds in Uganda is due to the Animal feeds policy which is out dated .
He observed the need to ensure that the Animal feeds policy is updated so that manufacturing of Animal feeds in Uganda can compete with the standard on the world market.
Over 30 participants from African countries attended the workshop.
