KOLE — Members and leadership of Bala Women and Youth Farmers Co-operative Society in Kole district, have urged other Non Governmental organizations in Uganda to take a leaf from SASAKAWA Africa Association activities to develop farmers.
Some of the Cooperative’s members in one of their gardens.
During a field visit to their projects, the Cooperative’s top leaders noted that the support in terms of capacity building, seedlings and other forms that they received from SASAKAWA and the Government of Japan , has greatly helped them in transformation of their farming business.
“Me and other board members of the Cooperative , we were sensitized on how to improve on our financial status as well as on proper leadership skills that can develop our Cooperative. We used to do individual marketing , but now we do bulk marketing from which the group retains 1 percent to run its operations.”remarked Aida Abia , Chairperson of Board ,Bala Bala Women and Youth Farmers Co-operative Society.
She added that the group was started by four individuals in 2012, but currently they are a total of 3177 members.
Etem Daniel , Center Manager for the Cooperative revealed that their partnership with SASAKAWA has already paid off since they have been able to acquire a number of machines to add value on their farm produce.
“We started small but now we are a strong Cooperative because of the experienced leadership and support from development partners like SASAKAWA.”
He further added that they no longer incur expenses in hiring warehouses since they have already acquired their own.
Christine Kyomugisha , SASAKAWA Africa Association Program’s manager regenerative Agriculture, stated that their main objective in working with farmers is improving food security, Nutrition and Income generation.
“We are looking towards diversification like having more than one enterprise in an area and livestock intergration in whatever we do. We are looking at this approach is one of the forms through which a farmer can earn more for less.”
She added that grouping of farmers has helped them to identify problems affecting the as well as coming up with solutions to these problems.
One of the farmers irrigating his crops
“Farmers now can make their orders for Farm inputs together ,after harvesting they can search for market as a group and this has saved them from being cheated by some business men.”
The farmers have asked Government to work upon the road network in Kole district so that they can be able to have easy access to market.
Majority of the farmers grow cabbage, Watermelon, Soya, Ground nuts, rice and other crops.
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