Jinja: Rural women farmers in Uganda have been tipped on agriculture produce value addition if they are to realise profits and expand their agribusinesses sustainably.
The rural women farmers were tipped during a two days’ training workshop in Jinja City on Tuesday facilitated by the German Association of Rural Women (dIv), an association empowering rural women farmers.
Mr Denis Kabiito, the Chief Executive Officer of Young Farmers’ Federation of Uganda said the German Association of Rural Women sponsored 20 rural agriculture women across the country to Germany last year to see what women in agriculture sustain and add value to their produce.
Mr Kabiito said the purpose of the workshop is for the various women farmers leaders who went to Germany for an exchange programme to share the knowledge for implementation in order to sustain rural women farmers.
He said this is a three years project that is aimed at building women capability in agribusiness because there are fewer women farmers occupying leadership positions in the sector.
Ms Justine Katusabe Nayiga, who went German for the trip under her Katusabe Investment Ltd in Mubende District, said Uganda has potential in supplying agricultural produce for export considering improvement in post-harvest handling process for quality production.
Ms Katusabe said the advantage those people have over Uganda is that they have all kinds of processing machines right from post-harvest handling to the final stages.
“Those farmers there have specialization in all stages of production unlike here where we use hands in some of our post-harvest handling. In the end, we fail to meet the export market because of poor quality produce”,said Ms Katusabe.
Ms Katusabe, who deals in maize, said the experience and knowledge she acquired from German have opened more opportunities to expand her business and share the knowledge with other rural women farmers she works with in the district.
She said the German Association of Rural Women has connections with some specific countries in marketing rural women farmers produce, and last month, she loaded 22 trucks with maize grain for export to Kenya, and demand is high.
Ms Vangi Ekirapa Tumusiime, chairperson Tororo Farmers Association dealing in cassava said following the trip to German, they have added value to their produce previously they were selling 1kg of cassava flour at shs300 but now its at shs1500-shs2,000.
Ms Tumusiime said they used to have poor post harvest methods of drying cassava on the ground that gets contaminated with soil, but now they acquired triers and tarpaulin.
“We have also learnt that we have to preserve the cassava cuttings for the next planting seasons rather than those days when we leave them to dry and the community collects for firewood which is not the case,” said Ms Tumusiime.
The president of the German Association of Rural Women (dlv), Mrs Petra Bentkamper, said the association is 74 years old in German, empowering rural women farmers in various agricultural products.
“We thought of empowering other rural women farmers in Africa and Uganda because the German Agency for International Cooperation operates here, we have come to evaluate and see what the 20 rural women farmers implementing what they learnt in German”,said Mrs Bentkamper.
She added that there is a need to empower and support women in agriculture, and they are the majority employed in the agriculture sector without being considered for leadership
