Doreen Amumpaire, a graduate turned small scale farmer in Kikubampanga village, Kakiri town council, Wakiso district does her farming on a 5-acre land, which she rents and harvests about 2000Kgs of beans each season. She also has a piggery project on the rented land. Every after 9 months, she earns Shs. 2.5 million after selling piglets. She tells me that her project is greatly hindered by inadequate access to feeds, poor breeds and low quality insecticides for spraying.
The economy of Uganda largely depends on Agriculture with over 70% of the population being employed in the sector. It also contributes to half of Uganda’s export earnings, and a quarter of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
However, farmers across the country still face different challenges, some of which can be resolved with innovation support to their tools or products.
In a meeting with delegates from Sasakawa Global 2000 Uganda (SG 2000), held two months ago at Kibooba Village, Kigege Parish, Nakaseke district, farmers said there is a down turn in agricultural output, and that it has sharply risen to 60%, as a result of adverse effects of climate change.
They also decried adulterated and low quality pesticides that are supplied to them by different suppliers, saying that this worsens the already tense situation, causing crops to dry completely.
It is people such as Amumpaire in Kakiri or those in Nakaseke, that the National Animal Genetic Resources Centre & Data Bank (NAGRC&DB) targets to help make agriculture more productive.
Raising agricultural incomes, which is the backbone of the economy, is the major goal of government agencies such as the National Animal Genetic Resources Centre & Data Bank (NAGRC&DB), which is tailored towards reducing poverty, boosting prosperity and creating jobs, especially for women and youth.
With high level engagements between government and several agricultural entities like National Agricultural Research Organisation (NARO), the National Animal Genetic Resources Centre & Data Bank (NAGRC&DB), challenges faced by farmers such as Doreen can be brought to an end.
This will in turn lead to farmers’ increased agricultural productivity and boost their incomes, hence raising the county’s export earnings, and boosting the GDP.
NAGRC comes in
For instance, in its year performance review, NAGRC&DB noted that access to improved animal genetic resources increased from 12.5% in financial year 2019/20 to 14.2% in the financial year 2020/21. Though it was a positive milestone, many farmers deep in the villages are left out of such programmes due to the entity’s limited resources.
Therefore, establishing an all encompassing programme, whose services are extended to even small scale farmers in hard to reach areas can have a greater positive impact.
Services like enhanced community-based breeding initiatives, new synchronisation protocols with better conception rates, increased availability of liquid nitrogen that boosts artificial insemination should be extended to all farmers, regardless of if they are small scale or large.
Nevertheless, efforts should also be undertaken to boost community breeding activities countrywide, by availing breeding semen of goats, pigs, dairy and beef farmers. This can help facilitate cross breeding, through artificial insemination, giving rise to high quality breeds that yield high outputs.
Government should coordinate with Agricultural entities like NAGRC services, and other stakeholders, to deliver high quality products and breeds to low income small scale farmers across the country. These include improved breeds which yield highly.
For instance during the financial year 2020/21, a total of 1,248,000 against a target of 1,000,000 chicks were hatched off by the NAGRC&DB hatcheries and distributed to farmers countrywide.
This performance is attributed to increased egg production from two multi-purpose scavenging poultry breeds (Kuroiler and Rainbow Rooster).
Mechanisation is also key to improving agricultural output. NAGRC&DB has been equipping animal generic resource centres with the necessary farm equipment and tools to promote farm mechanisation, for enhanced farm management. These include earth moving equipment like a bulldozer and tractors.
According to the report published by world Bank in 2018, Uganda needs to commercialise agriculture, through value addition and trade. It should also strengthen and support public agricultural institutions like NAGRC & DB, and enhance the resilience of agriculture production and rural livelihoods for it to help farmers boost productivity.
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