KAMPALA — The Grain Council of Uganda has outed the inaugural code of conduct to be followed by players in the grain products supply chain to ensure the quality of their products.
“The code of conduct puts together all the practices, and whatever needs to be done by all the players throughout the chain, including farmers, aggregators, transporters as well as the processors. Its enforcement, is to be effected within the mechanisms of the council itself,” says Robert Mwanje, the chairman of the Grain Council of Uganda. According to Mwanje, the code is a dream come true for the grain dealers, because its absence has cost the sector, and the country heavily.
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The code, takes into account the type and quality of seed that is planted, when the crop is harvested, how it is stored, transported, and processed as well as how the by-products are stored. This is so because food can be contaminated at all these levels and the code is out to control. It also prohibits packaging of lesser weight than what is indicated on the package.
Mwanje says this code of conduct, is a self-regulation tool among the sector players, and any player who fails to abide by it, will be handled by the regulators. The code also stipulates how to handle grains that are imported, especially rice, which is not so much produced in Uganda.
The code has come at a time when Uganda is still nursing wounds over its neighbors’ interceptions of its grain exports especially maize and flour for allegedly containing aflatoxin. The most recent was in South Sudan, where a consignment of up to 62 trucks of maize and other grains, were impounded, and over 1,700 tons of maize flour worth USD 2 million were destroyed.
Statistics show that Uganda exports up to 70 percent of its grains and by-products. Humphrey Mutaasa, the chief technical advisor to the grain council of Uganda, highlights that grain quality had become a persistent problem in the market both local and outside, saying that something had to be done to ensure a sustainable and reliable solution to the problem.
Mutaasa says the code is the governing document of the grain business in this country, and it must be assented to by all the players in this business.
This self-regulating code addresses past gaps, setting high standards from planting to packaging. It is timely amid recent export challenges, it ensures reliable, sustainable, and globally competitive grain products. The enforcement mechanisms within the council promise to uphold these new quality benchmarks.
