During the annual general meeting last year, Sebei Elgon farmers agreed to hire land from the union for at least two to three years beginning this year with an expected collection of 1 billion shillings’ cash.
The agreement ensued from an economic perspective that the union should progress, ironically it is becoming reputed that the agreement that farmers came up with last year is not the driving force towards the unions developmental plans as some of them differ to reducing it to one year, cutting the expected amount of money needed to kick start a coffee factory within the union headquarters in Kapchorwa town.
This decision is seen by some farmers as a lack of broadminded capabilities centered to good fortunes of collective goal, values, and objectives that cooperatives live by something phenomenon or fundamental. The economic nightmare has been mired by poor transport and communication, lack of price stability, value addition and lack of wider market outside the region.
The misunderstandings materialize from last year’s tragedy when the farmers felt; they have been robbed by some leaders of the union with a claim of nepotism, corruption scandals, and greed.
In tapping into the mindset of the locals within the farmland, Chemonges Martin one of prominent farmer says, “The first priority is that those surrounding the union farm should be given first chance to plough the land, at least 80 acres of land to be given to the nearby societies each, build shades for the tractors and do sensitization on how to utilize a small piece of land for greater outputs”.
A cooperative in Uganda and across the continent is a democratic institution that calls for a join collaborative understanding, common values, goals and how they plan to achieve their objectives but putting the farmers on the stakeholder’s seat.
The union’s farm manager advises farmers to grow short term crops so as to oust out the big negative impact of the drought that has continually affected the farmers produce.
However, for the Sebei Elgon farmers, there is a public outcry as most smallholder farmers are always ejected from getting the land privilege for cultivation.
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