500,000 farmers to benefit from FAO support
By Julius Odeke
4th June 2012:
SOROTI: The UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization [FAO] has said approximately half a million Ugandan farmers will benefit from its technical services. In an interview with Uganda Correspondent on Wednesday last week, Mr James Okoth, FAO’s National Programme Manager said in the last 10 years, FAO has established 4,000 field farmer schools with each having at least thirty members who are the rightful beneficiaries of their services.
Okoth also said the farmers will be trained on technical issues that will ensure that they have knowledge to detect natural calamities such as drought and flash floods that tend to destroy crops before they are harvested – hence bringing in hunger into communities.
He cited regions like Karamoja where vulnerable communities will be trained in hydrological issues since the region is always affected by floods and drought.
“We are partnering with government agencies like the National Agricultural Advisory Services (NAADS) and National Research Organization (NARO) to ensure that there is watershed management in these regions that experience such natural catastrophes,” said Okoth.
He added that Serere Agricultural and Animal Research Institute (SAARI) and Nabuin Agricultural Research and Development institute in
Moroto are addressing the problem of access to drought and disease tolerant seeds by farmers.
“There is a lot of seed adulteration in our country where farmers do not have the right seeds to farm – FAO comes in to provide them with selected variety of seeds that are drought and disease tolerant,” Okoth said.
He said FAO is now conducting countrywide sensitization seminars alongside the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries (MAAIF), local government officials, and the NAADS Secretariat to ensure that farmers practice land and water management to help them realise good harvests.
“This, we are doing through teaching them contour band introduction in Teso, Karamoja, Acholi, and Lango regions since they are the only regions in the country that do not practice it,” Okoth says.
He expressed optimism for good harvests since there are no indicators that hunger will strike Uganda adding that, “even Karamoja sub region which is so vulnerable to this attack had good harvest last year and right now the crops their fields are promising.”
Preliminary results from the Karamoja food security assessment however point to a declining number of herd sizes despite the good rains received in the last two years that created favourable conditions for livestock to thrive.
The decline is attributed to diseases such as Pestes des Petits Ruminants, Contagious Bovine Pleuropneumonia and Brucellosis. END. Please login to www.ugandacorrespondent.com every Monday to read our top stories and anytime mid-week for our news updates.
