Dutch gov't to help farmers recover crop losses

Farmers who will have enrolled for insurance will be compensated when hit by drought.

Compensation will be based on accurate information collected with the help of satellite phones through service agents. This is being done through the market led user owned ICT4Ag enabled information service (MUIIS) project.

The project worth €4.6m and funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, through several organizations, is being monitored  by the Technical Centre for Agriculture and Rural Cooperation (CTA) in the Ministry of Agriculture.

In order for farmers to understand the project better, it will be taken to farmers through the Uganda Cooperative Alliance (UCA) and the Uganda National Farmers Federation (UNFFE).

"The project is a satellite date enabled extension service that uses information and communication technologies to address the current agricultural information gaps," explained Carol Kakooza Kyaze the CTA chief of party.

This was during a training of over 150 farmer leaders of cooperative associations and farmer organization that ended on Friday at the National Agriculture Research Laboratories (NARL) Kawanda.

Kyaze said the service offers farmers three components which include weather information, best farming practices and agro insurance and this is delivered to farmers through a mobile phone. Farmers who get this information will have subscribed with the help of project service agent.

"Information is given to a farmer through a mobile phone because we collect accurate information through satellite. Right now it is showing us the entire Uganda and which areas have been hit by drought," Kyaze said.

She added that farmers who signed up at the start of the planting season and got losses will be compensated as soon as data collection is done.

"That is why we want cooperatives to integrate the project into the association for farmers to sign up and have relief in case their crops are affected by weather vagaries especially drought and also ensure continuity at the end of the three years," Kyaze added.

The component of agro insurance has further been supported by government through the Uganda Agro Insurance Consortium with sh5bn.

At the same event, the technical advisor for CIAT, Nicola Francesconi said the event that brought together about 150 leaders was to train farmers on how to collect data so they can understand the performance of their organizations.

"When we have the information, we can know areas of intervention but also make it available to investors so they can make better investment decisions for Uganda," he said.

For the five days that kicked off on Monday, farmers were trained on how to collect agriculture data, latest ICT tools through the MUIIS project especially weather related information among others.

"They were also trained on how to use ICT to connect with financial institutions but also learn management of the organizations so as to transform their organizations as businesses, added Francesconi.

What others think of the program

Dr. Dick Nuwamanya from Mbarara District Farmers' Association wants the project to address the technical capacity of small holder farmers who are the intended beneficiaries of the project so as to understand and embrace it.

Sofi Ayenya the chairperson Nyamahasa Area Cooperative in Kiryandongo district said they are faced with a problem of lack of weather and market information, adding that they are eagerly waiting for the project to extend its services to Kiryandongo.

"In March we were selling maize at sh1500 a kilo but now people are selling at sh600 a kilo because we don't know where the good market is but also the middlemen keep cheating us claiming they will find the market for us," she said.

Hellen Aanyu Aujo, the chairperson of Kobwin Area Cooperative is hopeful that the program will give them information for their produce.

"For example with satellite system, we now get information about the market .We have been getting the markets through middlemen, who use wrong units of measurements like a  big gorogoro which takes more than a kilo for less money instead of using the right weighing scale,".