Encroachers grab 1,230 acres from Sanga govt stock farm

Nov 30, 2010

OVER 1,230 acres of land belonging to Sanga Government stock farm in Kiruhura district have been encroached on, the farm manager, Tindyebwa Mugugo, has said.

By Ronald Kalyango

OVER 1,230 acres of land belonging to Sanga Government stock farm in Kiruhura district have been encroached on, the farm manager, Tindyebwa Mugugo, has said.

Mugugo told agriculture minister Hope Mwesigye, during her tour of the farm on Monday, that out of the 1,600 acres that the farm owned, only 370 acres remained.

“We need to fence off the farm, otherwise we risk losing all the land,” Mugugo said in a brief report.

The encroachers, Mugugo said, included Capt. David Byabasaija, who occupies 640 acres; Sanga town council, which grabbed 30 acres, and herdsmen, who took over 60 acres for grazing.

Mugogo also noted that another 500 acres were illegally surveyed by inspectors claiming to be connected to the Presidential Initiative and the Banana Development Project.

Sanga is one of the 12 stock farms in Kiruhura district under the National Animal Genetic Resource Centre and Data Bank mandated to breed indigenous Mubende goats.

Mwesigye also visited Nshaara and Ruhengyere ranches in Kiruhura.

She noted that the ministry was aware of the land-grabbing problem and that her technical team and the lands ministry had cancelled some of the encroachers’ land titles.

“I am surprised to hear that Byabasaija is still occupying the Government land. His land title was cancelled,” Mwesigye said.

She urged the farm managers to develop innovative proposals to enable them to utilise the land effectively.

Dr. Esau Gulukande, the technical manager of the National Animal Genetic Resource Centre and Data Bank in Entebbe, said all the 12 stock farms were under funded.

He said they developed a five-year plan in 2005, worth sh21b, but the Government only gave them sh3b.

“We wanted to restock the farms with good animal breeds, but we can’t do much with the meagre resources,” Galukande said.

The commissioner in charge of planning in the agriculture ministry, Sam Semanda, said the farms’ budget would be increased to about sh7b next financial year.

The farm managers also said the farms were understaffed, lacked electricity and were under-stocked.

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