By Stephen Nuwagira
The downward trajectory in the prices of a number of produce items continues in Ibanda over the past month with dealers attributing it to low market sentiment with minimal market activity.
Traders in Ibanda town quote the price of mixed beans at shillings 3,000 per kilogramme for retail buyers, decreasing from shillings 3,500 during the first week of June. The farm-gate price of mixed beans is shillings 2,700 per kilo. Green and yellow beans cost shillings 3,500 a kilogramme, indicating a drop from shillings 4,200 over the reporting period, while nambale goes for shillings 3,200 per kilo, down from shillings 3,800. Namable costs shillings 3,500 in Rushango town council, Ibanda North county.
A kilogramme of groundnuts goes for shillings 6,500, and that of groundnuts from Koboko is at shillings 4,800. Traders pay farmers shillings 5,000 per kilo of groundnuts.
Maize presently trades at shillings 1,800 at produce stores in Ibanda town, unchanged from June 5. However, a kilo of maize costs shillings 1,600 in Rushango. The farm-gate price for maize is shillings 1,200, reducing from shillings 1,650 over the reporting period.
Farmers sell unsorted millet at sh2,000 per kilo, but traders retail the same at sh2,500, an increase from sh2,400 last month. Sorted millet is unchanged at shillings 3,000 per kilo while sorghum ranges between shillings 1,900 and shillings 2,000, a decline from shillings 2,400 on June 5.
Dry cassava lost 300 to trade at shillings 2,000 per kilo. It costs shillings 1,800 from farmers but traders ferry it mainly from Kyenjojo and Hoima districts after local supplies dwindled, according to Ibanda Produce Dealers Association chairman Godfrey Begumisa.
Begumisa says the glut on the market is driven by supplies from Tanzania and neighbouring districts.
Local traders had stocked produce items at high prices during the harvest season in anticipation of scarcity after crops failed in most parts of the district.
“However, we forgot that produce could be ferried in from other places given the improved road networks,” Begumisa said.
He added that the low market sentiment was attributable to the fact that the main buyers from Kenya had stayed while Tanzania is also experiencing a glut.
