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Jinja, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Farmers under their umbrella Busoga sugarcane growers Union-BSU have asked the government to address challenges in the sugar industry.
While meeting with the National Resistance Movement-NRM Deputy Secretary General, Rosemary Namayanjja on Thursday, the farmers said that sugarcane growing is the backbone of Busoga’s economy, and called for the government’s intervention to make it profitable.
Namayanjja is heading a fact-finding team of NRM secretariat officials who are assessing the declining support of the NRM party in the Busoga sub-region.
The National Unity Platform-NUP president, Robert Kyagulanyi alias Bobiwine defeated President Yoweri Museveni in the 2021 general polls. Kyagulanyi was the winner in Busoga’s seven districts and Jinja city, whereas, President Museveni excelled in the three districts of Kaliro, Namutumba and Buyende.
The farmers say that failure to regulate the sugar industry will force them to shift allegiance to the opposition.
The chairperson of sugarcane farmers in Kamuli district, Peterson Mubiru says that the government should finance value addition in the sugar sector, by offering low-cost loans and skills to farmers willing to process their cane rather than selling it in its raw form to the millers.
Mubiru argues that, through financing, farmers can produce finished products like molasses which costs 550,000 Shillings per tonne, Bagasse at 220,000 Shillings, and ethanol at 9000 Shillings per litre, among other products.
Mubiru notes that the continuity of the sugar industry, coupled with having a long-lasting economic transformation in Busoga is only attainable by involving farmers in the value addition chains.
Regina Namusoke, a sugarcane farmer says that responsible government agencies desiring to boost the economic well-being of farmers should devise means of relaying their support through proper channels, rather than conniving with opportunists, a move which has over time frustrated such efforts.
The BSU secretary general, Christopher Mombwe faults the government for prioritizing the interests of the investors at the expense of the general wellbeing of the citizens.
Mombwe says that this form of imbalance has provided a leeway for investors to freely fluctuate prices without any form of reprimand.
The BSU women’s representative, Penninah Terikya says that a tonne of sugarcane cost 247,000 Shillings between March, 2023-May, 2024, when the prices dropped to 110,000 Shillings.
Terikya says that this drastic price drop has bred ground for fresh domestic violence, where husbands who are unable to provide for their families turn to assaulting their wives.
Terikya also notes that they spend close to 6.5 Million Shillings in preparing one acre of a sugarcane plantation, with most farmers relying on loans to meet these costs.
The Jinja District Woman MP. Loy Katali wants the sugarcane farmers to be under the Agriculture Ministry, which will enable them to channel their concerns other than in the Ministry of Trade.
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