Northern Uganda state minister for Grace Freedom Kwiyuchiny has urged the residents of Yumbe to make proper use of the available land in the district to transform their lives.
Kwiyuchiny made the appeal during the launch of a 145-hectare block farm for women in the district on Sunday, October 30, 2022.
Kwiyuchiny said Yumbe residents are blessed with vast land and what remains is how to make wealth out of it without selling it off.
“The land we have here is the wealth for our families. We need to involve ourselves in serious commercial agriculture to transform our lives” she said.
Kwiyuchiny added that Yumbe district being strategically located at the border with South Sudan and hosting the largest population of refugees in the country, is enough for the people to get rich just in a year.
“The World Food Programme is buying food from elsewhere and bringing it for the refugees we keep here. We can produce the food required here and use the money to pay school fees for our children and build better houses,” she said.
She further challenged the residents to benchmark from other parts of the country so that they can do the right things to eradicate poverty.
About the block farm
On the 145-hectare block farm, women have planted soya bean which is at the flowering stage.
The farm is spread across three sub-counties: Arilo, Romogi and Kuru.
According to Rukia Safi Rembe, the chairperson for the Yumbe District Women’s Effort Savings and Credit Organisation ( YUDWESCO) block farm, 250 associations formed the SACCOS group in 2013.
The groups comprise widows of veterans, orphans of veterans, veterans and non-veterans majority of whom are women.
Rukia said they moved to commercial agriculture because of the food insecurity and the high levels of poverty in their families.
“It’s women supporting most of the families in Yumbe. We, therefore, sat down and looked at all the challenges we are facing as women and decided to start a farm as a solution,” she said.
She added that they signed a memorandum with the defence ministry, which supported them with 3,250kg of soya beans for planting.
Other leaders speak out
Defence and veteran affairs state minister Huda Oleru Abason, who is also Aringa East Member of Parliament, urged the Government to support the farmers in the district through the provision of mechanised agricultural tools and water for irrigation.
Yumbe Woman MP Avako Melisa Naima Gule called the men to support their women in agriculture so that they develop together.
“Today we are gathered here because of the women, tomorrow we should come here for both men and women together,” she said.
Hussein Hudu, the Resident District Commissioner for Yumbe, lauded the women for embracing agriculture.
He said the Government is investing a lot of resources in agriculture because it has been proven to be working great in eradicating poverty.
Yumbe LC5 chairperson Abdulmutalib Asiku said the road network in the district is still a huge obstacle to development.
He, therefore, appealed to the Government to expedite the processes of upgrading the Koboko-Yumbe-Moyo road and Arua-Terego-Yumbe road in order to ease the transportation of goods to the market.
