UBL in partnership with NARO to improve productivity

The National Agriculture Research Organization (NARO) and Uganda Breweries Limited (UBL) have signed a memorandum of understanding that will bring together researchers from NARO and UBL to work on improving the quality of raw materials sourced from farmers.

The partnership comes at a time when farmers, in general, are faced with challenges such as pests and diseases, low yielding seed and lack of information.

Candidate commodities covered under the MOU and are important in the beer industry include sorghum, cassava and Barley.

Ambrose Agona(left) the Director General NARO with Alvin Mbugua the Managing Director UBL during the siging of a partnership at Serena Hotel. (Photo by Nicholas Oneal)

According to the agriculture manager at UBL, Joseph Kawuki, the traditional sorghum grown by farmers attracts birds which is a challenge to the production of sorghum. He adds that cassava used for the production of some beers needs improvement to increase the shelf life

Kawuki said UBL has been importing seed for some of the sorghum at a higher cost, which is distributed to farmers for planting.

“Most of the new varieties are hybrids that take a shorter time to mature, like 90 days, while the local varieties take about 6 months, which may not be good for business, explained Kawuki.

The above challenge, according to the managing director of UBL, Alvin Mbugua, was due to the disconnect between researchers at NARO and those within UBL.

While signing the MOU, Mbugua said the two research teams have not been working together.

“We both have research centres, the issue is are our scientists talking to each other? Are we exchanging information at a rate that will benefit the community of farmers to see a multiplier effect? We are not, we are working in parallel. The MOU will bridge the gap,” said Mbugua.

He said researchers from both organisations will be exchanging on crop varieties demanded by the over 20,000 farmers that supply the raw materials.

Commenting on the partnership, Dr Ambrose Agona, the Director-General of NARO said the partnership will lead to the breeding of better varieties needed on the market.

“We have many research technologies that are not getting out to the public due to lack of information on what is demanded by the market and now that our partner is working with farmers, we shall breed as per their demand.

“This will help NARO meet its ten-year goal of innovating sustainable technologies that benefit farmers,” Agona said.