Form cooperatives to access better markets for your produce, farmers urged

LIRA-Lira Produce Dealers` Cooperative Society [LPDCCS] Limited has advised farmers in Lango Sub-region to form cooperatives if they are to get better markets for their produce.

There is concern that farmers in the sub-region are receiving farmgate prices, which is an advantage to the middlemen whose target is to earn abnormal profits as farmers earn peanuts.

The chairperson LPDCCS, Patrick Ogwal said the bumpy maize harvests in the sub-region would now be a better opportunity for bulking if farmers were under cooperatives, adding that they would get better price offers since they would negotiate with one voice.

He said the sharp drop in prices of maize and other crop harvests has attracted dealers from as far as Busia, Kampala, Mbale Jinja, and neighbouring Kenya where maize is a staple food crop.

According to Ogwal, whose cooperative has 200 members, said the price of maize has drastically dropped from Shs 3,000 to Shs 800 a kilo.

On the other hand, a kilo of maize flour is being sold at Shs 2,000 from Shs 4,000; beans at Shs 3,000 from Shs 4000; sim-sim at Shs 5,000 from Shs 6,000 while a kilo of groundnuts is now selling at Shs 5,000 from Shs 7,000.

Last year acute famine hit the subregion with Otuke district reporting four deaths which prompted government to deliver to the district 40 tonnes of beans and posho.

The situation escalated to deaths after the sub-region including the neighbouring Karamoja experienced prolonged drought which led to crop failure and poor harvests.

Patrick Okello, the secretary LPDCCS expressed concern over the high rate farmers are selling their maize cheaply.

“Farmers are selling out maize cheaply as if the world is ending tomorrow yet we need food daily,” he said.

However, some of the farmers said they are selling maize cheaply to get money for medical care, fees, clothes and pay off debts.

“It is true we [farmers] are selling maize at a cheap price. This is because we need money for school fees, medicines, and many other needs,” a farmer said while selling her produce to dealers from Mbale City.

https://thecooperator.news/kwania-farmers-decry-low-prices-of-farm-produce/

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