Uganda: FAO launches sh18b food security project

The UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) has unveiled a three-year project worth about sh18.1b aimed at improving food security in Kasese, Kabale and Kisoro districts. The project is expected to also benefit cross border districts in the DRC, Rwanda and Burundi. In Uganda, the project will include value addition to mangoes and pineapples in Kitswamba, Bwera, Munkunyu and Nyamwamba in Kasese district. Speaking at the project's inception in Virina Gardens on Friday, the assistant FAO representative in Uganda, Charles Owach, said that the project would help to increase incomes and living standards of the small rural households.
"This will be through profitable agricultural production systems, increased market access and value-added activities among other things," Owach said. In Uganda the project had started in Kisoro and Kabale, where it supported dairy farming, potato and honey processing. The initial project covering cross-border districts in Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda from March 2007 to this year was sh6.7b. "Based on the positive performance of the project in the first phase, the Italian government allocated additional funds amounting to sh11.4b to cover the inclusion of the Democratic Republic of Congo for three years," he added. This, he said, was to strengthen and scale up ongoing activities in benefiting countries. The first phase of the project started in 2006 in Kabale and Kisoro districts in south-western Uganda.
"In the project design, farmers will be formed into associations or groups in order for them to benefit," said Owach. He called for total project support from the implementing districts, the Agriculture ministry and other development partners. "Unreliable weather, backward farming methods and low adoption of technologies are among the frustrations faced by those who attempt to tackle food security in the district," Kasese assistant Chief Administrative Officer Johnson Mutungwanda noted. Mutungwanda urged FAO to consider small-scale irrigation schemes. Closing the meeting, the district production, marketing and natural resources secretary, Muzamiru Bisanga, appealed to FAO to involve political leaders at all levels to ensure the project's success.