The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Gulu, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | On a calm Monday morning in Gulu City, the raucous vibration of milling machines fills the air as I step into a modest milling store in one of the bustling industrial neighborhoods of Bardege-Layibi Division.
Seated at the entrance to the store filled with towering sacks of maize and rice on wooden pallets is Jamal Nasur, the Managing Director of Bilbao General Enterprises Gulu.
Nasur is a household name in Gulu city who has been in maize and rice milling and fabrication business since 1994.
In 2012, Nasur, filled with the urge to start supplying his milling store with rice from his own farm ventured into rice farming to expand the already existing business. At the time he cultivated between eight to ten acres of rice field in Alingiri Village, Nyamokino Parish, Lungulu Sub-county, in Nwoya District.
The harvests were always disappointing according to Jamal despite the heavy investment, something he has now realized was a result of poor post-harvest handling practices.
“I used to make losses before making my own threshing machine, because you would have to use manual labour for threshing. And the people you have hired to pound the rice by hand don’t pound them well, which leaves many rice grains stuck to the rice straws and that is where as a farmer I made great losses,” Jamal told Uganda Radio Network.
However, a year later when he upgraded to fabricating not just maize threshing machines but rice threshers, his farming venture gradually improved.
“After fabricating the rice thresher, I went on to commercial scale rice growing. Before, we used to only cultivate between eight to 10 acres because it required a lot of manpower,” said Nasur.
He added: “when we fabricated the rice thresher, we increased on our scale to between 70 to 100 acres of rice and the harvest also improved significantly.”
Nasur’s innovation was largely from hands-on training in agro-machinery fabrication that he gained informally during his youthful days.
However, through this innovative approach that provided a solution to reduction of post-harvest losses, Nasur was identified and approached by Palladium for a partnership to train small holder farmers in Acholi sub-region on post-harvest handling.
Through the partnership, Nasur’s workshop was selected to take part in a specialized fabrication training in Zimbabwe where one of his employees spent a month acquiring practical skills in fabricating multi-crop thresher.
According to Nasur, the threshing machines, especially multi-crop thresher have proved beneficial to farmers in the rural communities in reducing crop losses, expenses on labor intensive threshing and time spent on threshing while maintaining quality seeds.
“First of all, their time, like you have one acre… like for soya, that one will not take us two hours. when you are done and you go for another thing. But if you use local people, it will take you one week,” he said.
Adding “…when you use the machine, it is very clean because we put the machine on a tarpaulin then we thresh everything. You get the real quality,”
For instance, a multi-crop sheller in an hour threshes three tons of maize grains and soya beans, while using only two liters of fuel while a rice thresher uses 1.6 liters of fuel to thresh up to 12 bags of rice.
Cost of thresher machines
The threshing machines however don’t come cheap, something Nasur admitted remains a big challenge for many farmers to easily acquire.
For instance, a hammer mill costs UGX. 6.8m, while a multi-crop sheller for soya, maize, and rice mounted on a tricycle costs UGX. 16.8m.
Today, Jamal’s innovation has not only helped him to boost his agricultural ventures but also contributed to addressing food security reduced losses for many small holder farmers who can’t afford imported post-harvest technologies. In some of the rural communities, Jamal has hired out his multi-crop sheller charging just UGX. 8,000 for cleaning a full bag of soya beans, maize and rice.
Skills Changing farmers fortune in crop Harvest
In rural communities where limited knowledge and skills on best post-harvest management practices is partly blamed on increasing food losses and food insecurity, some farmers have over time become examples of how knowledge can make significant difference in farming.
Some 22 kilometers outside the bustling Gulu city, Patrick Ogik, a smallholder farmer in Laminyoo village, Kal Alii Parish, Paicho Sub-county in Gulu District has turned his knowledge and skills in sustainable agricultural practices into reality.
About 500 meters from his home sits a lush green plantation of soya beans and maize, all planted uniformly in rows adjacent to the Gulu-Kitgum highway belonging to Ogik, who doubles as the chairperson of Okomgoro farmers group.
Ogik, has been a traditional farmer nearly all his life not until, a training he acquired through Palladium in post-harvest handling about four years ago which transformed his farming mindset.
“Before I got the training in post-harvest handling, I used to broadcast my seeds in the garden, we used to thresh crops on the ground claiming tarpaulins are expensive and later you find stone in cereals like rice. It’s not the case now with me,” said Ogik.
Putting knowledge to practice
To start with, Ogik now allows his garden to fallow for at least one month after ploughing before planting which he says rejuvenates the soil, and helps boost productivity. Unlike traditional broadcasting methods where seeds are randomly scattered, Ogik now plants all his crops in rows, allowing for proper spacing, easier weeding and better crop development.
During the flowering stage, Ogik carries out rogueing, a unique process of selectively removing flowers from undesirable plants to maintain uniformity and ensure quality seeds.
However, the most substantial change adopted from his training has come during harvest. Rather than drying his crops on bare soil, and storing the harvest on floor which often leads to contamination and mold, Ogik says he now uses tarpaulin, and wooden pellets, a simple but effective method that keeps his seeds clean and moisture free.
“It’s important for a farmer to own a tarpaulin, and new packaging material when harvesting crops. Currently if you are still threshing or storing crops on the ground, you are committing a crime, because you are allowing the crops to get contaminated and this is causing cancer,” Ogik told Uganda Radio Network.
Through this effective practices, Ogik said his farm products are booked in advance in the market with one of his major customers being Jamal Nasur, whom he has ever sold at least 2.5 tons of rice seeds with each kilogram costing 2,500 shilling. Additionally, his group members were also able to sell 3 tons of rice seeds in 2020 to Bilbao Enterprise.
Ogik is among hundreds of farmers from the region who have also benefited from subsidized tarpaulins for drying cereals from the government through the Agriculture Cluster Development Project (ACDP) by paying only 148,500 shillings including quality maize seeds. The initiative funded by the World Bank aimed at boosting crop production for small holder farmers.
Data from the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries (MAAIF) indicates that poor post-harvest handling accounts for nearly 25 percent of losses of maize produced annually within Uganda.
Annually, the country produces an estimated 5 million metric tons of maize, implying approximately 1.25 million metric tons of maize grains are lost year due to poor post-harvest handling.
Vicky Ochan, the Secretary of Latyeng Farmers Group in Owak Cell, Pece-Laroo Division in Gulu city recalls too well how the group members suffered heavy crop losses in the past due to limited knowledge in post-harvest handling.
“before our members received training, we used to collect our harvest in anything, be it baskets or an old sack, we never cared. While harvesting rice, we would cut and leave them in the garden and sometimes we find termites have started eating them,” said Ochan.
The farmers group with 527 small holder farmers started in 2006 at the time locals started returning from the Internally Displaced People’s (IDP) camps following decades of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) insurgency in Northern Uganda.
The group majorly focuses on growing foundation seeds supplies to small holder farmers, commercial farmers, government and seed companies within the country.
According to Ochan, the group members received their major breakthrough training in 2017, when they partnered with Palladium. The members at the time received training in best agricultural practices, skills on reduction of post-harvest and market linkages.
Through the partnership, they were able to receive vital equipment such as a moisture meter, and a floor scale, to which Ochan says has helped significantly in ensuring they have well dried cereals with correct weight as they are taken to the market.
“It’s important for farmers to have a moisture meter because they can’t store crops with moisture…that affects their quality. When you store well dried seeds, you maintain their quality and reduces risks of rots,” said Ochan, adding “the moisture meter helps reduce risks of crops developing molds which the government has been emphasizing it causes cancer.”
Boom in crop harvest
Following the training, Latyeng Farmers group over the years realized an increase in the quality of their rice seeds and earned trust from several clients in need of foundation seeds.
Statistics from the farmers group shows after their first training with Palladium, the farmers were able to bulk 78.9 tons of rice. In 2018, the production rose to 92.8 tons of rice and further increased to 138 tons in 2019.
However, in 2020, Latyeng farmers group realized one of their highest harvest, after bulking 160.5 tons of rice.
“They usually first ask us whether we have rice, the other issue is that they don’t find sand in our rice,” said Achan. Layteng’s farmers group clients mainly deal in foundation seeds and have over the years supplied Victoria Seed, Equator Seed, Commercial Farmers, and the government.
Stuck with Value Addition Machine
Despite owning a proper storage facility equipped with a modern multimillion rice huller, the farmer group hasn’t been able to use it since its installation in 2018. The rice huller which cost about UGX. 98m was installed by Operation Wealth Creation (OWC) to process rice and boost value addition.
Ochan however said since the installation of the machine, electricity has never been connected to their store despite pleas to the government, a move she said has affected their plans to add value to the rice their small holder farmers harvest.
Through their savings, the farmer group has built a new storage facility and connected it to electricity, but they now face significant challenges in relocating the heavy machinery.
“We appeal to the government and other well-wishers to support us in relocating the machines to our new storage facility. We currently don’t have the necessary finances,” Said Ben Ocan, Latyeng Farmer Group Chairperson.
Christine Ajok Onono, the Senior Agricultural Officer Gulu City Council, noted that limited access to equipment and materials for post-harvest handling still remains a major problem for many rural farmers.
Ajok however explained that the changing weather pattern attributed to climate change impacts is affecting farmers in timing when to plant and when to dry their crops, which wasn’t the case in the past.
“Previously, we knew when to plant, when to dry the crops, but now people are confused. We used to dry at this time, July, then we plant in March, dry and then prepare the garden for the next crop in August, for the second season, but now, the thing is just continuous,” said Ajok.
Emphasis on proper storage
Ajok advised farmers on timely harvest of mature crops, proper drying of crops, threshing with machines instead of pounding for instance maize and rice and proper storage to avoid loss of quality, prevent moisture and pest infection.
“Ensure you harvest at the right time, not prematurely. When the crops are mature, take for instance maize, ensure that it is well dried using the tarpaulins because in the process, we may find that some people spread on the ground and remember fungi are born in the soil,” said Ajok.
Through support from Food Rights Alliance, Ajok said they are currently conducting sensitization on a local Radio station and conducting physical training of farmers on post-harvest handling and food safety.
Each year, the agricultural department at Gulu City Council targets training of close to 3,000 farmers, mostly those who have accessed the Parish Development Model (PDM) funds from the government.
According to Ajok, the city council is also planning to start a farmer field school, where farmers get hands-on training on a wide range of agricultural practices to minimize crop losses.
Gov’t Making Strides on Food Loss, waste
In 2019, the Ugandan government with support from the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), World Food Programme (WFP), and International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) established a National Strategy for Post-Harvest Loss Reduction in grains.
The strategy seeks to increase awareness and trigger a mindset change towards grain post-harvest management, enhance the knowledge and skills of post-harvest management practices, and increase adoption and utilization of appropriate and improved grain post-harvest technologies among others.
Uganda is predominantly an agricultural economy with some 68 percent of the population deriving their livelihood and income from the sub-sector with almost all households growing grains besides other crops. The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Cooperatives in a September 2015 report, indicated more than 2.5 million households derive their income and employment from the grain sub-sector.
As of 2019, according to data from FAO, the annual post-harvest loss in the country stood at 17.6 percent for about 2.8 million Metric Tonnes (MT) of maize grains produced in the country. Meanwhile the post-harvest loss for millet was at 12.4 percent of about 214,000 MT and 13.5 percent of 230,000MT of rice.
The Production of this story was supported by InfoNile in partnership with Palladium under Climate Smart Jobs
****
URN
