Top 100 agricultural firms asked to embrace mechanisation
Light moment. Nation Media Group - Uganda head of marketing Sarah Nalule (second left), Assistant Commissioner for Agribusiness Deus Muhwezi (third left) and other partners during the sectoral meeting for agriclture business in Kampala yesterday. PHOTO BY KELVIN ATUHAIRE
What you need to know:
- Purpose. This is aimed at increasing the farmers’ harvests.
Kampala. The Assistant Commissioner for Agricultural Business in the Ministry of Agriculture has urged firms to enhance agricultural mechanisation if they are to expand their sales around the country and even produce for export.
Speaking at a sectoral meeting for firms that deal in agri-business in Kampala yesterday, Mr Deus Muhwezi advised the entrepreneurs that for their businesses to grow, they need to find a way of increasing their produce in the country, which starts with the use of modern methods of agriculture
“You know in the past, agriculture used to depend on human muscle that is using the hand hoe from production to processing which is tiresome and also not sustainable, so to reduce human muscle on the farm is through promoting farm mechanisation,” he said.
Mechanised agriculture is the process of using agricultural machinery to simplify farming with the aim of increasing productivity.
Mr Muhwezi said the government is in plan to provide regional farming mechanisation centres where it is going to identify potential firms and provide them with machines that will be given out to farmers.
“We are trying to introduce regional mechanisation centres where government is going to procure and provide support through tractors at these regional centres which will be led by private sector,” he said.
He added that these private sectors will have to be operating on a large scale and have to be certified.
“A farmers group or cooperatives will go and hire those machines from those private sector people that will meet the criteria to have them at a highly subsidised rate like fuel and allowance of the driver,” he added.
The Assistant Audit manager at KPMG, Mr Gadafi Semakula said: “We first analysed the sectors in top 100 and agriculture was coming up as one of the potential participants where we felt they would need a meeting with some expert in agribusiness to discuss their challenges and see how to be guided.”
Mr Samuel Okwakol from Sesaco Company Limited, which is also part of the top 100 firms, said the introduction of mechanisation in farming is a milestone for them to increase on their productivity and also enhance their relationship with farmers.
