John Kasozi And Josephine Maseruka
15 May 2008
Kampala — THE Mengo establishment will set up three demonstration farms in each district in Buganda to enable locals learn modern agriculture techniques.
"The farms will be used as poverty-eradication training centres," Katikkiro (premier) John Baptist Walusimbi said while visiting Katende Harambe Rural-Urban Training Centre in Wakiso on Tuesday.
He added that he would meet all Ssaza (county) chiefs and urge them to visit the centre and pass on the information to the Kabaka's subjects.
Walusimbi appealed to youth not to sell the land they inherited from their parents so as to buy motorcycles (bodabodas).
"Many youth spend most of their time in towns playing zaala (gambling)."
The training centre is a family project located in Sabawali-Kyaliwajala in Kira sub-county.
The activities carried out on the five-acre farm include albino rat breeding for laboratories, goat breeding, poultry, hatching, piggery, bee-keeping, fish farming, soil conservation and banana production. Others are horticulture and composite manure production.
Jane Magoba Nyanzi, the chairperson of the centre, quit her UNICEF diplomatic career in Indonesia to run the project.
She said the farm, which was started in 2004, was named after their late father Maikolo Katende.
It is aimed at promoting sustainable farming to improve the livelihood of Ugandans, she added.
Nyanzi urged farmers to take advantage of the European Union tariff-free strategies for African agricultural products to market their products.
"The union has imposed heavy tariffs on agricultural products from South America. This guarantees a market for our produce," she said. The farm make a profit of sh2m monthly.
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