Leaders in Kotido District have warned farmers against selling off their products as food prices double during the harvest season.
Currently, the farmers are harvesting crops but due to high prices of food and many have been lured to start selling off their harvests. A bag of maize costs 200,000 shillings from 170,000 Shillings before the harvest, a bag of sorghum is at 150,000 Shillings, a bag of groundnuts at 150,000, while Beans at 400,000 a bag from 250,000 Shillings.
Other produce like Simsim is now sold at 7,500 Shillings per kilogram and Rice per kilogram goes for 5,500 from 4,000 Shillings.
Emmanuel Lodio, the Kotido District Speaker, says that farmers should not be excited over the high prices and ready markets for their produce because there is still an impending food crisis in the region.
Lodio says hundreds of trucks have descended on the district to buy food and farmers are running with their produce forgetting that hunger is still looming in the region.
He observed that many farmers lost what was planted for the dry season and also in areas where there were little rains people have been unable to go to their gardens due to insecurity.
Lodio warned farmers to desist from selling off their food saying that exposes their families to a serious famine since the harvest has not been good.
Joseph Abura, the Bishop of Karamoja Diocese says that the harvest for this year was very poor, and therefore more hunger crisis is expected come 2023.
“We are expecting more hunger here because the armyworms have completely finished the first crops’’ Abura said.
He advised the farmers to jealously guard the little harvest they got because there are no permanent solutions yet for the Karamoja hunger crisis.
Abura appealed to the people to share the food they have harvested with others who did not get it instead of selling it to traders.
Alex Lokutan, a farmer in Kotido District says it is very unfortunate to find the Karamojong who have been crying of hunger carrying food in the basins to sell because they want money for personal use.
Lokutan says they have already arrested some people for selling food and yet the families are still struggling to provide a full meal for their children.
Gabriel Etesot, the Deputy Resident District Commissioner for Kotido directed police and the army to mount roadblocks to block all the trucks carrying food out of Karamoja to avoid famine.
Etesot said the culture of selling food when the region is still grappling with hunger must stop because farmers only want cash for alcohol.
He also noted that in most cases food is bought cheaply from farmers by the traders in Teso and Lango sub-regions then later brought back to Karamojong when the prices are tripled.
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