NAADS equipping farmers with value addition machinery

Jul 28, 2020

First of all, we should all ask ourselves whether government institutions do enough of the 'Monitoring and Evaluation' of the various projects under their dockets or they just deliver and simply sit back at their offices. 

By Michael Woira

This past week I managed to travel around the country with a team from the NAADs Secretariat.

We can say that my belief is in the physical, "the seeing is believing" type. Many years ago, the NAADS Secretariat was initiated by President Yoweri Museveni, however, I have always tried to find out what it exactly does, but failed on many instances, which explains why I went on the ground to see what has been done for Ugandans, especially in the agriculture sector.

A sector that we all believe is the backbone of our country. 

First of all, we should all ask ourselves whether government institutions do enough of the 'Monitoring and Evaluation' of the various projects under their dockets or they just deliver and simply sit back at their offices. 

Monitoring and evaluation are very critical for building a strong, evidence-based project that everyone can look at and appreciate what an entity is doing.

At the national level, monitoring and evaluation is a tool for identifying and documenting successful programmes and approaches and tracking progress towards common indicators across related projects. 

At the entity level like NAADS, the purpose of monitoring and evaluation is to track implementation and outputs systematically and measure the effectiveness of the programme.

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It helps determine exactly when a programme is on track and when changes may be needed. Monitoring and evaluation form the basis for the modification of interventions and assessing the quality of activities being conducted.

In Uganda now, the most effective way to improve the lives of the impoverished is to support agriculture because many of those who are poor, at least have a piece of land where they can farm. A lot of literature sometimes takes farmers as the poorest which I think is wrong. 

Transforming a country's agriculture sector can reduce malnutrition, raise incomes, create jobs, and kick-start the economy on a path to middle-income status. 

According to available research, many rural families make their living from several kinds of work; advancement in farming has proved to be the path toward widespread, poverty-reducing growth in rural areas.

Booming agricultural advancement through value addition has provided opportunities for farmers to earn a better income.

The National Agriculture Advisory Services, a statutory semi-autonomous body under the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries mandated to manage the distribution of agricultural inputs to farmers for sustainable household food security and incomes has indeed fulfilled what it is meant to do in many districts of Uganda.

On 8th June 2018, Notabe farmers group a group that consists of 30 members, 20 females and 10 males received a rice milling machine from NAADS to help them process the rice that they grow.

This group has achieved a lot ever since it got this machine and among the achievements includes having several tenders from many people who bring their rice to be processed from their milling machine.

The Notabe farmers' group which was formed in the camp during Kony's war in the North is now the main store for good rice in Alebtong district; it has got several varieties of rice including Namcy 1 and 2 that they got from Namulonge.

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Benson Dola, the chairperson of this association says that they are now more empowered because they get enough money to educate their children and buy other basic needs. After all, the machine has made them some good money.

In addition to being empowered, they now own at least 20 acres and 17 acres, of rice and soya beans, respectively. 

In Busoga, we found another group of farmers called Bugiri integrated farmers and agribusiness Association that was formed in 2017 and as per now it has over 2036 members.

Kisoko Juma the chairperson of this association says that this union was formed to deal with the burden that farmers used to face while looking for a market for their goods. In 2018, around June, the association also received rice milling machine and to-date the only professionally improved machine in the whole Buwuni area.

According to the association members, the machine they received from NAADs produces good rice, a milestone that has enabled them to offer the best value-added services in the area.

In the same line of helping Ugandans to venture in value addition, NAADs procured a squeezer and other equipment to help Eric a farmer in Kaliro to process quality animal feeds.

From the animal feeds project, members of Mikwano Farmers Association have now come up with other projects of value addition that are now, helping several women get some income.

All in all, NAADs has done more than enough but as a country, we only miss that point of letting Ugandans know, of what is happening and how far the government projects have performed.

Many Ugandans would wish to utilize such opportunities to have them empowered, but there is always a communication gap that NAADs and other agencies are trying to fill, so the local person engages with the agencies for feedback. 

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