PDM: Amuru farmers opt for soybean enterprise
AMURU-Most farmers in the 52 parishes in Amuru district have chosen to grow soybean as an enterprise they will embark on in line with the Parish Development Model [PDM].
So far, officials in the district say 40 parishes have submitted their enterprises with 12 remaining as government moves to complete documentation before it releases funds to 10,594 PDM SACCOs across the country.
Samuel Kidega, the PDM Focal Point Person for Amuru district told our reporter in an interview that of the 40 parishes that have so far submitted their enterprises of choice, with soybean enterprise taking the highest percentage, followed by groundnuts, and goat rearing enterprises.
Recently, President Museveni disagreed with the choice of farmers going for oil seeds including soybean, saying its value chain is not robust and gives little to Uganda’s economy in terms of revenues fetched, especially from exports.
Stephen Odong Latek, the Amuru Resident District Commissioner said the parishes that have submitted their enterprises have already received their unique identification numbers that the Ministry of Finance will use to disburse funds to the respective PDM Saccos that will be lending to organised farmers’ groups and others.
Latek said that they are also engaging the farmers on the choice of enterprises, noting that some might not be easy to run to have positive results. Under the PDM, to be run for five years, government hopes to move 3.5 million households that are still in subsistence farming to the money economy.
“We have had a series of engagements, which actually are still ongoing to ensure that the enterprises that our farmers will opt for are workable, with high success rate, given factors like market accessibility among others,” Latek said.
According to Latek, they are also encouraging the PDM committees and other stakeholders to be keen in regards to monitoring the operations of the groups to minimise cases of corruption.
Latek stressed that Amuru district is ready for the implementation of the PDM, saying they have worked on pillars such as; community mobilisation, governance and administration, and information gathering among others. What is remaining, he said is the Ministry of Finance releasing funds to PDM SACCOs, which will come under pillar three of the PDM.
In the financial year 2021/222, government provided Shs 200 billion, targeting every parish to access Shs 17mln as a revolving fund for members of the village SACCO.
Yet in the current financial year that kicked off on July 1, 2022, government provided Shs 1,059.4bln, in which each of the 10,594 parishes in the country will receive Shs 100mln annually as a revolving fund specially under the two pillars of Agriculture Value Chain Development [Production, processing, and marketing] and Financial Inclusion.
https://thecooperator.news/channel-pdm-funds-through-cooperatives-mps-say/
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