Africa-Press – Uganda. The government through the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries (MAAIF) and its agencies are set to implement a project dubbed “Uganda Climate Smart Transformational project” worth Shs1.3 trillion.
This was revealed by the Agriculture Minister, Mr Frank Tumwebaze, during the National Stakeholders’ Workshop that was attended by RDCs, CAOs and DPOs held at Speke Resort Munyonyo on Tuesday, January 9.
“Under the Climate Smart Agriculture Project, we shall be intervening to help farmers at the various stages of the value chain. This time our emphasis is not on seedlings because we believe the Parish Development Model has solved that, and small [holder] farmers are getting money and buying their own seeds. This time we shall be intervening to ensure good harvesting, good storage, some level of primary processing and to ensure that the farmers are linked to the markets. We shall also use this project to revamp our research stations like Kawanda, Serere, and Mbarara, among others because that is where seed comes from,” Mr Tumwebaze said.
He emphasised to the stakeholders to ensure that they select transparently the beneficiaries of these projects so that they do not give to people machinery that they cannot use and create white elephants.
The six year project is aimed at increasing productivity, market access and resilience of select value chains in the project area, and to respond promptly and effectively to an eligible crisis or emergency.
“The project will support the government to identify, develop and incentivize adoption of climate smart agriculture technologies and management practices that contribute to climate adaptation of Agricultural value chains to sustainably increase productivity and household incomes while enhancing resilience to climatic shocks,” the minister added.
The Permanent Secretary, MAAIF, Maj Gen David Kasura-Kyomukama, said the project comprises of five interlinked components, which include Strengthening Climate Smart Agricultural research/Seed and Agro-climatic information systems, promoting adoption of Climate Smart Agriculture Technologies and Practices, and Market Development and Linkages for selected value chains, among others.
“The project implementation targets 69 districts across 13 agro-ecological zones of the country, including seven refugee hosting districts,” he said.
He further stated that the project is expected to directly benefit about 760,000 households, which is 3.9million individuals, and indirectly benefit approximately 1.9million households or 9.5million individuals.
“Among these, beneficiaries from the non-refugee districts will be about 620,000 households and 60,000 refugee households and 80,000 refugee hosting households. This represents 65 percent of the total population of the project districts,” he added.
The Permanent secretary highlighted factors, which may affect implementation, including availability of land, whereby the Ministry has had project delays or cancellations because of land compensation.
“We have had scenarios where districts agree to offer land and when it comes to actual implementation, then they begin to ask for compensation. This project too has a number of investments, which will require land. I want to emphatically state that we shall not be compensating for land acquisition and we shall not put any investment in the district unless we verify that the land is available,” Maj Gen Kasura-Kyomukama said.
He cited other factors as lack of accountability, lack of monitoring and reporting, and lack of ownership of the investment, among others.
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