KAMPALA: Minister of State for Kampala Capital City and Metropolitan Hon Kabuye Kyofatogabye, has rallied youths across Kampala region to embrace AgroFresh; a new initiative in urban commercial agriculture.
AgroFresh Uganda, led by its Executive Director Laban Musinguzi launched Youth Empowerment and Development in Commercial Agriculture (YEDCA) project in Nakawa, Kampala with an aim of encouraging more youth in urban setting to engage in commercial agriculture.
In this project youth are encouraged to grow vegetable crops like; tomatoes, green paper, spinach among others.
In his speech that was delivered by Lilian Nakazi, the Administrative Officer in the Minister of Kampala, Kyofatogabye noted that AgroFresh Uganda’s intervention is timely because it is addressing a subsector where the youth can be engaged in a variety of activities and circumstances in which their interest can be piqued and they can be trained to become active and not passive market actors.
“The youth are very easily attracted to the agricultural sector most especially the quick but not easy money side of agriculture such as vegetable and fruit growing. However, the lack of support for this age bracket as well as the urban farming sector has hindered many from participating in agriculture,” he said adding,
“The demand for organic agricultural produce is on the increase worldwide and yet it cannot be fully met by the local suppliers. Those that are engaged in the sector are earning up to $3000 per month and still, the demand is still great,”
This, he said has led to a need to come up with innovative interventions to the approach towards Agriculture from the tradition.
“Owners of miles of land are the only ones accessing financing and yet it is possible to have small holder farmers coming together and bridging the agricultural products gap. When I say this intervention is timely, it is indeed timely,” he said
“As we come up with all these youth inclusiveness interventions, it is very important that we understand the target we want to support, to work with and do business with. It is also prudent to define them and know who they are along with their characteristics relating to business and background. Equally important for us all is to realize that the youth are between 75%-85% of the population,” he added.
The launch was organised by AgroFresh in partnership with Post Bank, Bank of Uganda, and Coalition of Sustainable Development Goals.
Speaking at the function, Musinguzi reiterated the need for cheap and accessible financing of agricultural loans by youth who engage in farming,
“Thats why we have decided to come up with this project, there is cheap loans like the Agriculture Credit Facility loan but fewer youths know about it and those who know are asked collaterals which we dont have so we have called upon banks including Bank of Uganda to explain to the youth how they can be accessed.
“We are going to organize these youths in groups of 10 to 35 and teach them how to engage in farming, which can take 60 days to mature. We want to focus on vegetables, tomatoes, green paper, spinach aming others,” he told Chimpreports at the sidelines of the event.
**Chimp
