Africa-Press – Uganda. AGRIBUSINESS|AGROFORESTRY
WAKISO – Government has been asked to aid local Agro forestry farmers to enable them favorably compete with foreign companies on the international market.”If local agroforestry farmers are boosted with enough capital or machinery, they can favorably compete with the big investors and even work better than them,” said Vincent Kasozi, the director Bangafi group of companies.He noted that local agroforest farmers have the potential to grow bigger but because of limited capital, they cannot easily compete.Kasozi who was accompanied by Mercy Lugemwa, the company’s public relations manager and Timothy Mayanja, was speaking at their end-of-year press conference in Wakiso district on Friday.Kasozi said climate change in the country is a serious problem and as a country, urgent intervention with systems like agroforestry can work better.Agroforestry is the land use management of combining forestry, agriculture and livestock on the same piece of land to improve crop productivity but also increasing biodiversity.He noted that Uganda’s forest cover has been depleted to 12% by 2020 down from 24% in the 1990s, largely attributed to human encroachment for different activities such as charcoal production, illegal timber harvesting and agriculture.He revealed that they are planning to plant over 250,000 trees in 2021 on 6, 000 acres of land which has already been secured.
“We shall plant 155,000 electric poles on 310 acres; 100,000 timber trees on 200 acres and 45,000 small pole trees on 90 acres,” said Kasozi.Addressing the media on World Food Day last year, Kenneth Katungira the Executive director Uganda National Farmers Federation (UNFF) called for the urgent approval of national Agroforestry strategy to ensure food production and implementation of agroforestry practices in the country.”If Government approves the national Agro forestry strategy, it will give proper directions and coordination of actors and guarantee budgetary allocation,” Katungira said.Lugemwa called upon the youth to embrace tree planting because it has potential of providing employment and reducing poverty levels amongst them.”We need to advise farmers to grow trees as they do their agriculture,” she said, adding that 96 percent of the population use firewood for cooking, timber, shelter and others. “If we don’t replant more trees we’re likely to face the wrath of climate change,” she said.Currently, lakes including Kyoga, Albert and Victoria shared by Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania have burst their banks as a result of floods that are triggered by climate change.
