WAKISO – Gudie Leisure Farm (GLF) – a social enterprise providing various agribusiness development services to especially youth-owned micro and small enterprises (MSEs) in the agricultural sector has trained hundreds of youth in cereal value addition and chain.
Speaking at the cereal symposium at their head office on Monday, Prof. Gudula Naiga Basaza, Founder and Managing Director of GLF said that the trainees from 700 parishes across the country are now skilled with different abilities to produce good quality cereal products.
“We want to ensure that when our youth are engaged in the cereal industry, they have businesses that are registered, paying taxes where it’s necessary and businesses that are certified. So we have different government bodies here like URA, URSB, NARO, Ministry of Trade among others to speak and educate young people to do business in the right ways.”
“We have cereal potential buyers and those with advanced technology that we need. This is very dear to us as Gudie Liesure Farm bearing in mind that we have youth from 700 parishes that are engaged in cereal,” she added.
Prof Gudula says that they have discovered that the productivity of maize is still low in the country where in some regions they produce less than 2 tonnes of maize in an acre, and in others 3.5 tonnes in an acre.
She says this is still very low production, however, optimistic they shall leverage the symposium on how they can increase productivity.
She highlighted the challenge of post-harvest handling which has often resulted in aflatoxin contamination which tarnishes the entire name of the country.
On the issue of price fluctuations, Gudula asked the government to employ mechanisms, especially for the private sector that can wipe out the excess produce so that the price remains stable and people can rely on this as a business
Dr. Frank Kagodda, Research Officer, NARO highlighted why millet is still in low quantities noting that it is one of crops that can be categorised as orphans.
“Not much research has been done on it and along the way, it has lost in terms of new varieties compared to crops like maize and rice. However, we have some new varieties within NARO for millet, now it’s the responsibility of the extension arms to take these varieties to the farmers.”
Johnson Abitekaniza – Acting Commissioner, Business Development and Quality Assurance, Ministry of Trade tipped the youth not only to focus on growing of crops that requires land which they might not have but think through their entry point into the cereal value chain, including production, value additional, supplying and transporting.
“You need to see that whatever they bring to the market meets the standards that will promote their products.”
A one Ibrahim, a young farmer from Lwengo, dealing in maize farming noted that most agriculturalists are not well trained in different processes like harvesting – saying that post-harvest handling is one of the major factors affecting the market.
He is optimistic that with this training, he will no longer only practice maize growing but also value additional “which I am positive will increase my income.”
