President
Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has today afternoon visited Bukoto Central Youth Link
Coffee Factory at Kamuzinda village in Kyanamukaka sub county, Masaka district
where he urged farmers to add value to their out-put in order to uplift their
welfare.
On
arrival, the President was warmly welcomed by the team of coffee farmers led by
Mr. Julius Kanamwangi, the chairman of Bukoto Central Youth Link. He was shown
a number of agricultural products that included; roasted coffee seeds and
packed coffee powder locally known as ‘kaawa’.
While
addressing the attentive team of farmers, President Museveni appreciated them
for transforming their lives through getting involved in commercial
agriculture.
He said
that there is a need for the farmers to add value to their produce in order to
further transform their standards of living.
He
detailed that coffee can be roasted, grinded, packed well, add milk to it and
any other good spice then sold slightly higher than the current price.
He went
ahead to give an example in Indonesia where they add value to their coffee with
milk, and other important spices, package it and then sell it expensively. He
thereafter urged the Ugandan farmers to borrow a leaf from Indonesia and any
other country which adds value to their produce.
President
Museveni also promised to continue supporting coffee farmers and avail them
with among others; a coffee roasting machine, and a coffee grinding machine;
all costing Shs.150m.
Concerning
the transportation issue, the President promised to get them a Fuso box body
motor vehicle costing Shs.250m which they will use to collect their yields from
the gardens and take them to the market after processing them.
On his
part, Mr. Kanamwangi appreciated President Museveni for visiting them and for
initiating government developmental programs like Uganda Coffee Development
Authority (UCDA), and Operation Wealth Creation (OWC) which gave them 385,000
coffee seedlings that they planted in two years.
Mr.
Kanamwangi said 240 youths managed to plant an acre of coffee with an intention
to enable them to support themselves. He added they normally take the coffee
for roasting and grinding which is costly and therefore appreciated Mr.
Museveni for donating to them the necessary machines.
Concerning
the issue of transport, he explained to the President that they face it rough
while harvesting, processing their coffee and then taking it to the market due
to absence of better transport means. Mr. Kanamwangi therefore appreciated
President Museveni for supporting them and accepting to get them a Fuso Box
body truck.
He also
thanked the President for giving them a tractor through the National
Agricultural Advisory Services (NAADs) program which has helped the youths to
dig on a large scale, citing an example where one who used to dig on one acre
of land can now dig on five acres using cheap labor.
Mr.
Kanamwangi further urged the youths to embrace government development programs
to fight poverty.
He
revealed that he started with one acre of land which was given to him by the
President. He said through such support, he was able to buy land, coffee and he
expanded to seven acres that enabled him to get Shs.15m (last year) from two
acres of coffee plantation and now he is expecting to receive over Shs.30m from
four acres of coffee plantation.
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