Minister Ngobi launches Shs 500mln model farm in Butebo district
BUTEBO – The State Minister for Trade and Cooperatives, Frederick Ngobi Gume has launched a Shs 500 million model farm in Kacuru Sub-county, Butebo district to help improve farming activities in the district through use of different farming technologies.
The funding of the model farm came from the United Kingdom-based Bumba Foundation which provides innovative projects that focus on providing access to quality education, improving health and sanitation, reducing poverty, whilst increasing individual and community sustainability.
While launching the model farm on Friday, Minister Ngobi called upon the locals to take care of the model farm and its facilities so that it benefits everyone in the area.
“The purpose of this model farm is to help our people learn how to use different technologies in farming,” he said.
The Minister also tasked people to embrace agriculture as a business, saying it will improve their household incomes.
He said the farm will fight poverty among the residents in the area.
The model farm involves livestock, dairy farming, mangoes, fish farming, coffee, banana growing, tomato growing, goat keeping and poultry.
The Butebo district Woman Member of Parliament, Agnes Adeema, said the project would benefit the local community.
“The district has many farmers who will benefit from the project. They will be able to eat a balanced diet as many children were suffering from malnutrition in the district,” she said.
She commended the government for the project.
“This project will help our people to grow crops throughout the year. They have been suffering mostly during the dry season whereby they can not grow crops,” she said.
The Butebo district chairperson, John Opolot, promised to support the project.
“As leaders we will make sure this project rolled over the whole district to help curb the poverty levels in the district,” he said.
Farmers in the area are excited about the model farm,, the first of its kind in the area.
“This is the first time we are getting this kind of model farm in the area. We expect to benefit from this farm, especially that the Parish Development Model [PDM] provides for fruit, bananas and coffee farming,” a local farmer who grows maize, beans, and a few other crops said.
A female farmer was optimistic that she will now get extension services from the model farm. “We hardly get extension services on our individual farms but now I think, this being a model farm, we, the farmers will be able to get the services here,” the woman who grows beans and soybeans for sale said as minister Ngobi launched the model farm.
Farmers in Butebo district grow crops such as beans, maize, soybeans, cabbages, tomatoes, fruits groundnuts, potatoes, and yams among others on a small scale, although they also keep some livestock. Big towns like Jinja, Mbale, Iganga, Kampala and Busia provide market for the produce.
https://thecooperator.news/minister-musenero-urges-butebo-farmers-to-embrace-pdm/
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