Government urged to recruit extension officers

Tress Bucyanayandi, the Minister for Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries, has said government needs to recruit and facilitate extension service providers to bridge the gap and offer farmers the important technical support to thrive.

The minister said the country needs at least an extension officer per sub-county. This was during a meeting with the Uganda People's Defence Forces officers who are implementing the Operation Wealth Creation programme, at State House, Entebbe.  The meeting was presided over by President Yoweri Museveni.

Last year, the ministry said it sought close to sh100bn to cater for salaries and operation costs for the 3,300 extension workers that it intended to recruit to implement the then newly adopted single spine extension system.

The director for crop resources Okaasai Opolot said the ministry required about sh43bn to cater for salaries and an additional sh60bn for operational costs to implement the programme, which got instituted after government disbanded the NAADS structure in 2014.

But the resources were never released.

Tress Bucyanayandi said they needed to recruit veterinary, agriculture and fisheries (where applicable) officers at district and sub-counties to provide farmers with the needed information.

"We want to close the extension farmer ratio from the current approximately one extension officer to 5000 farmers and bring it down to at least one extension officer to 1800 farmers," Bucyanayandi said.

As a consequence of lack of adequate extension officers to offer farmers the necessary technical expertise, many farmers are left clueless, gambling with what, when, and how to take care of their farms. 

Add that to the poor post-harvest handling and lack of value addition, it leaves majority of the country's population who depend on Agriculture, wallowing in poverty.

President Yoweri Museveni challenged the Operation Wealth Creation programme, led by Gen. Salim Saleh, to "convince and convert" subsistence farmers, who at least own an acre of land, into commercial farmers.

The President challenged the army officers involved in the programme to use intensive agricultural methods to help wanainchi solve the challenge of turning "small pieces of land (1 - 4 acres)" into viable settings that can yield more and offer additional financial returns. 

He said farmers should be helped to engage in value addition and to focus on perennial crops such as coffee and tea for better returns. Farmers can also engage in planting of tomatoes, onions, mushrooms, and other projects like poultry and piggery, as well fish farming.

He asked the army officers involved in OWC to allow wanainchi select beneficiaries (of farm inputs) to avoid conflicts.

"Production and family organization in terms of business is what I want you to do for Ugandans,'' Museveni said.

During the 56th state of the nation platform on the role of the UPDF in NAADS at Protea Hotel in Kampala last year, various speakers criticized the deployment of the army in agriculture.

But, Dr. Samuel Mugasi, the NAADS executive director, said the deployment was "realizing tangible results" in the sector.

"Initially, farmers were not getting proper quantities of farm inputs. Because of corruption, inputs were not reaching the intended beneficiaries. But the UPDF are swift and farmers are getting the required inputs," Mugasi said.

Bucyanayandi said the OWC and extension officers played a complementary role to better Ugandan farmers.