Dutch govt supports thousands of farmers

By Joshua Kato        

The Dutch embassy will continue supporting the transformation of the agricultural sector in Uganda.

This was revealed by Hans Peter van der Woude, the head of Cooperation at the Netherlands embassy, during the Dutch government sponsored Food security an economic cooperation status report presentation, at Hotel  Africana last week. 

Hans Peters represented the Dutch Ambassador, Alphons Hennekens who was out of the country.

Hans Peters pointed out that in the last few years of Dutch embassy support to the agriculture sector in Uganda, tremendous success has been recorded.

“93,000 beneficiary farmers produced an extra 56,000 metric tons of cereal equivalents, this is about 2,800 truckloads of 20tonnes, thereby generating a net income of sh54bnr sh580,000 per farming household,” he said. 

Additionally, he pointed out that 6,000 dairy farmers sold an extra 16million litres of milk, which was 50% more in 2013 following the installation of low cost, energy saving and environment friendly coolers from the Netherlands.

This helped the farmers generate an extra sh10bn, with each farmer earning around sh1.5m on average. The coolers were acquired with support from the Dutch embassy. 

In northern Uganda, over 90% of youth trained in agri-skills with support from the Dutch embassy are now self employed, while 9,000 farmers trained under the same programme have now adopted better farming methods.

Hans Peter Van der Woude further explained that  farming was becoming sexy by the day, because more and more people who hitherto did not see farming as a business are not joining. 

Using the example of the ‘Best farmers competition’ that was initiated by The New Vision, but supported by the Dutch Embassy, KLM airlines and DFCU bank,  he said that the success of the competition is a pointer to the new positive trends in the agriculture sector.

“In our best dreams we never had estimated the success of this competition. Simply put, it is hard to overestimate its impact on farming in Uganda,” he said.

He added, “The 10 best farmers organized their own workshops, traveled as farming diplomats to the Netherlands and returned as local celebrities,”

The best farmers 2014 travelled to the Netherlands on April 18th and returned on April 25, after touring many farms, farm equipment dealers and agriculture financiers in the Netherlands. 

The 2015 best farmers competition is ongoing at the moment.

Hans Peter Van der Woude however called upon the Ugandan government to implements better inspection of agriculture products destined for export in order to safe guard  the lucrative market.   

“Partners recommended the Government of Uganda to set up a phytosanitary authority for effective inspection of agri-products and of seed and agro-chemicals on the domestic market,” he said.

He added that good qualitative phytosanitary inspections are of the outmost importance for the export of Ugandan agri-products to the European Union (EU), but more to regional markets.

The Dutch embassy further promised to enhance its bilateral business facilitation by strengthening the companies that already do business with the Netherlands and to look for new partners and organizing trade missions to the Netherlands.