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Uganda is
truly a blessed country when you think about our agricultural potential.
Our weather is not that bad; it ably supports both crop and animal
production; a big proportion of our land is arable; we also have a fair
share of Ugandans with vast technical expertise in agriculture; and we
have over the years had deliberate government financing mechanisms to
boost agriculture.
However, though the government has often been on the spot when it comes to budgetary allocation to agriculture, we hardly interrogate where the little that we are given is invested or what it has helped us achieve.
As a result many Ugandans, who depend on agriculture as source of livelihood, are discouraged to learn that this sector, with good programmes, is not thriving because of the mismanagement of the little resources dedicated to it.
There’s a very good government agriculture financing scheme introduced in 2009 called the Agricultural Credit Facility (ACF). This programme, if relied on as a vehicle to anchor finance to farmers, will help weed out all the middlemen now squandering resources meant to improve the activities of farmers who have since remained beneficiaries only on paper.
Through ACF, the government channels money to commercial banks where farmers can borrow directly at 10 per cent. The farmer is given a grace period of up to three years and the maximum loan period not exceeding eight years and the minimum of six months to pay back the borrowed money.
If the government injected the Operation Wealth Creation money into ACF, whose scope needs to be widened to allow farmers across the country borrow and take charge of the purchases of their own seedlings, machinery among other agro inputs, we would start to see transformation not only in the sector, but in the livelihoods of the common citizens.
Our technical people in the agricultural research institutions, agricultural officers at the district level would then be left with the responsibility of and supported to provide farmers with extension services and advise on the purchase of appropriate agro inputs. The government had better cut the middlemen and rebase its funding directly to farmers through ACF.
Mr Okwakol is concerned citizen.
okwakolsam@gmail.com
SOURCE: MONITOR
However, though the government has often been on the spot when it comes to budgetary allocation to agriculture, we hardly interrogate where the little that we are given is invested or what it has helped us achieve.
As a result many Ugandans, who depend on agriculture as source of livelihood, are discouraged to learn that this sector, with good programmes, is not thriving because of the mismanagement of the little resources dedicated to it.
There’s a very good government agriculture financing scheme introduced in 2009 called the Agricultural Credit Facility (ACF). This programme, if relied on as a vehicle to anchor finance to farmers, will help weed out all the middlemen now squandering resources meant to improve the activities of farmers who have since remained beneficiaries only on paper.
Through ACF, the government channels money to commercial banks where farmers can borrow directly at 10 per cent. The farmer is given a grace period of up to three years and the maximum loan period not exceeding eight years and the minimum of six months to pay back the borrowed money.
If the government injected the Operation Wealth Creation money into ACF, whose scope needs to be widened to allow farmers across the country borrow and take charge of the purchases of their own seedlings, machinery among other agro inputs, we would start to see transformation not only in the sector, but in the livelihoods of the common citizens.
Our technical people in the agricultural research institutions, agricultural officers at the district level would then be left with the responsibility of and supported to provide farmers with extension services and advise on the purchase of appropriate agro inputs. The government had better cut the middlemen and rebase its funding directly to farmers through ACF.
Mr Okwakol is concerned citizen.
okwakolsam@gmail.com
SOURCE: MONITOR
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