Smallholder farmers encouraged to join cooperatives

Uganda Cooperative Alliance (UCA) has encouraged smallholder farmers to join cooperatives to access better inputs and to collectively market their produce.

The UCA General Secretary Ivan Asiimwe said it is important for farmers to belong to farmer groups to grow.

Speaking at the signing of a memorandum of Understanding between UCA and Self Help Africa (SHA) Asiimwe said, "Without joining groups or forming cooperatives it will not take the country far."

The collaboration between UCA and SHA is intended to design and implement programmes and activities that are intended to support smallholder farmers in Uganda to increase their production, grow their incomes, and achieve food and nutrition security through individual and collective action.

He said in Uganda agriculture is largely dominated by smallholder farmers who occupy the majority of land and produce most crops, livestock, and fisheries products but on a subsistence basis.

Asiimwe added that the main challenge of smallholder farmers is low productivity and limited commercialisation that has frustrated the full utilisation of the productive potential of agricultural innovations in the country.

Agricultural production and productivity levels among the smallholder farmers have remained below its potential.

Uganda has more than 21,000 registered cooperatives spread across all sectors of the economy.

The country director SHA Engorok Obin said they currently implement nine projects in 22 districts targeting over 20,000 households in rural communities with training and skills development.

He said they work with smallholder farmer groups and producer associations to target a range of crop value chains including cereals, oilseeds, tubers, vegetables and legumes, fruit, poultry, and piggery among others.

At the same meeting, UCA signed an MOU with SWISSCONTACT to strengthen the capacity of farmer organisations, contribute to an enabling business environment for the different players in the agricultural and entrepreneurship ecosystem, and to play an active role in promoting access to services and products sector growth.

The Country Director SWISSCONTACT Pavlos Troulis said under the new arrangement they are looking at about 10,000 farmers across cocoa and beekeeping linked to 20 cooperatives.