By Moses Kizito Buule
A safe water, high voltage solar power and agriculture handling enterprises has arrived in the country for talks with government for introduction of their expertise in the poverty reduction and household income improvement struggle.
M/S Allied Agro Outputs Limited, simultaneously doing business in neighboring Rwanda and Burundi, targets especially rural women who bear the brunt of feeding families amid the troubles of walking long distances in search of usables.
Speaking to Watchdog Uganda over the weekend at their offices in Mutundwe, Lubaga Division in Kampala, the two Eritrean executives in charge of the project Fekadu Teweldemedhin and Neammn Hagos said they plan to set up a training of trainers to be able to bring all Ugandans on board.
Teweldemedhin said that they also intend to take their training to schools and institutions to help students get both the theoretical and practical skills, to avoid coming out as half-baked experts.
“Uganda is endowed with a lot of natural water sources and if we install solar powered pumps in villages, this would be a bi complementary service to the abundant rain water”, he said.
He said they intend to hold talks with the ministers of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries, of Water and of Energy, all with a view to set up more friendly services to rescue the rural folk from the heavy chores.
If the proposed talks with government bear fruits, Ugandans will be able to access uninterrupted water supply by solar-powered pumps in villages, acquire solar powered milling machines, solar lights to eliminate indoor pollution by fumes and enable learners study at night.
The solar power expert Neammn Hagos said that back at home in Eritrea, power cuts are now history after popularized use of solar power as a source of energy especially in rural enterprises.
“Besides minimizing running costs of using other forms of fuel, producers are always assured of availability of power, and again solar power is applicable even to farmers with limited plots of land”, Hargos said.
He said the most essential component in the entire set up is changing people’s mindset to accept the new changes, modern methods of planting, harvesting and post-harvest handling, adding that with the human development sector properly handled, you cannot go wrong.
Neammn said that indoor air pollution causes significant health problems for over 80% of the population who rely on traditional biomass fuels and stoves for cooking and heating needs so they have a plan to disseminate improved cleaner stove and solar cookers to minimize social and environmental costs.
The two officials decampaigned the tendency of upholding traditional methods of production, which they blamed for keeping Ugandans in a system enabling them to produce only for subsistence.
“Although the basic idea is targeting domestic syrvival first, we cannot be limited to this if we are to realize income improvement; we must as a necessity think of producing an extra amount for the market”, Hargos observed.
They suggested that they will advise government to support communal production in villages, arguing it is more cost effective to pass on knowledge to people organized in set ups like co-operative societies.
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