Kampala — FARMERS under the NAADS programme in Busoga sub-region will have their land tilled by private tractors in preparation for the March to June planting season.

Under the intervention dubbed, "Tractor hire scheme", farmer leaders will contract private tractor operators to plough land. Dan Kilimani, the NAADS engineering support assistant, said the arrangement would cost sh45m.

He explained that the initiative is aimed at reducing the dependence of the farmers on hand tools. "With the majority of our smallholder farmers currently dependent on the hand hoe, with only a few accessing and using oxen and even less accessing tractors, agricultural production is inefficient and drudgery-intense," he said.

Addressing farmers and local government officials of Jinja and Mayuge district at a workshop at YMCA in Jinja on Monday, Kilimani noted that rudimentary tools had discouraged the youth from taking up farming.

The Hoima NAADS coordinator, Dr. Scola Bwali, said her district had registered success stories, following the inception of the tractor hire scheme. The plan was implemented in Hoima in the 2004/05 financial year, and rice production had increased from 800kg per acre in 2003 to the current yield of 1, 800 to 2,000kgs per acre, she explained.

"In 2003, the district had only three rice mills, but now we have 64 rice mills," Bwali said. The Jinja chief administrative officer, Okiror Iporotum, who opened the meeting, asked his technical officers to embrace the scheme immediately.