Fruit farmers blame politicians over supply loss

Members of Teso Tropical Fruits Cooperative Union have blamed politicians in the sub-region for the losses they have incurred in supplying oranges to Soroti Fruit Factory.
In a telephone interview yesterday, Mr Lawrence Emoit, the secretary general, said they lost Shs800,000 after delivering six tonnes of fruit on Monday.
They earned only Shs100 from a kilogramme of oranges after buying it from farmers at Shs500 and selling it to the factory at Shs600.
“How do you expect me to meet my overhead costs on Shs100 which also contains the withholding tax? This has almost become like a social business because farmers do not care whether you are making profits or losses. Politicians told them the price of oranges is Shs500 per kilogramme,” he said.
Asked what is happening to the fruits that farmers have declined to sell to the union, Mr Emoit said middlemen doing business in Kenya were offering the farmers better prices.
However, Mr Douglous Ndaula Kayuyu, the factory managing director, said the highest amount of fruit the union has sold to them is seven tonnes of oranges which can only run the factory for one hour.
“In the last 18 days, they have supplied only 15 tonnes. They claim they lack logistics, they do not have finances, the members are not willing to give their fruits for free, they lack capacity,” he said.
He said the factory requires 48 metric tonnes of fruit to fully operate.
Mr Kayuyu also appealed to leaders to give farmers accurate information.
Trade minister Amelia Kyambadde yesterday blamed local politicians for failing to mobilise farmers and give them the right information on the fruits.
“We have to involve politicians, they are not mobilising enough. It seems people are selling the fruits to Kenya but there is some fruit. I will have to go to Teso and mobilise farmers to grow fruits,” she said on the sidelines of a conference announcing events leading to the UN Day of Cooperatives.
During the press conference, Mr Leonard Okello, the chief executive officer of Uhuru Institute, urged government to compensate cooperative unions which lost property when the Cooperative Bank collapsed.
“If government could set money aside for recapitalising the Cooperative Bank, that is a good way of compensating cooperative unions which lost their assets when the bank was liquidated,” he said.
Earlier this week, Lt Gen Charles Angina, the coordinator of Operation Wealth Creation, told this newspaper that farmers planted table oranges instead of oranges for juice when they learnt that a fruit factory would be established in the area.
“The farmers were excited because Kenyans were buying their fruits but they were not planting the right seedlings for juice. We have table oranges and those suitable for juice production,” he said.
Lt Gen Angina said they would organise farmers into mechanised groups to train them on how to produce quality fruits in the next financial year.

Capacity

Soroti Fruit Factory’s annual capacity stands at 25,000 metric tonnes of mangoes and oranges. The Shs48b factory is expected to, among other things, provide market for fruit producers countrywide while raising fruit farmers’ income.