The minister in charge of local government, Raphael Magyezi has emphasized that identifying and targeting viable agricultural enterprises is instrumental in realizing positive gains from the ongoing parish development model-PDM rollout in the communities.
Speaking after inspecting different stalls at the agricultural and trade show in Jinja city on Sunday, Magyezi stressed that PDM’s target is poverty alleviation in the heavily impoverished grassroots communities and if timely sensitization on modern farming techniques is offered to beneficiaries, most of them will smoothly transcend to the money economy.
He added that to effectively benefit from the PDM, farmers ought to learn tips on proper enterprise selection within both the agriculture production and value addition chains, so as to embrace more of the high-yielding, yet fast-growing crops, which can earn them quick money.
Magyezi pledged to liaise with the PDM secretariat and the ministry of agriculture officials to ensure that farmers have ready access to modern agriculture technologies aimed at enabling them to generate more incomes from small pieces of land.
He further challenged media organizations to prioritize the dissemination of information concerning modern farming technologies, quality farm inputs and ready markets, with the aim of enlightening members of the general public to invest in high-income yielding agricultural initiatives.
Meanwhile, Joshua Musinguzi, a member of the Isingiro district farmers’ association says that they have adopted modern cassava farming techniques, which end in processing the tubers into flour.
Musinguzi adds that he is optimistic that resources from the PDM will enable them to widen their cassava value addition chain to meet the market demands.
Eseza Naigoobe, a farmer from Kamuli district says that the extension workers in their area are not vibrant enough, leaving farmers to struggle with misguided enterprise selection, which has left them counting losses despite their efforts of adhering to the available modern agriculture techniques.
