Gov’t to support cooperatives with processing facilities

LIRA – The government has a medium-term plan to support cooperative societies in Lango and Acholi sub-regions with processing facilities, Dr. Charles Aben, a top official at the National Agricultural Advisory Services Secretariat [NAADS] has said.

“We have already identified some cooperatives in this area [one in Acholi Sub-region and in Lango Sub-region] where we will establish cooking oil processing facilities so that when farmers produce sunflower seeds, they are able to extract oil from them,” Aben, who is in charge of crop development at the NAADS Secretariat said.

The NAADS official was briefing the media days ago in Lira City during the handover of 76 metric tons of sunflower seeds to cooperatives in Lango Sub-region. The seeds were offered to 62 cooperatives including large-scale farmers in Lango and Acholi sub-regions.

The initiative targets to increase the vegetable cooking oil in the country after realising acute shortage of the oil as a result of the war in Ukraine and the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Under the arrangement, the government is contributing 70 percent and farmers part contribute 30 percent after harvesting.

Aben said processing facilities will help farmers to earn higher incomes from selling finished products as opposed to selling grains.

“We found out that you need four kilogrammes of sunflower seeds to manufacture one litre of cooking oil,” he said, adding that a litre of cooking oil goes for Shs 8,000 in some parts of Northern Uganda while farmers sell a kilo of sunflower grains at Shs 1,000.

Denis Owera, a sunflower farmer said there is a ready market for produce, much as he said farmers in cooperatives face the challenge of lack of processing facilities.

https://thecooperator.news/demand-for-value-addition-when-you-have-enough-production-farmers-told/

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