By Godwin Abedican

Arua

Farmers in Terego district are thrilled with the commissioning of a newly constructed aggregation center. Located in Ocodri village, Biliafe Sub County, the project had a store with a capacity of 100 metric tons, that costed 125 million shillings, a milling house constructed at 18 million, 2 milling machines at the cost of twenty two million two hundred forty thousand (22,240,000/-), a solar powered valley dam together with a water pumping machine which coasted 36 million shillings.

As consortium project led by Lutheran World Federation, under the Livelihood Enhancement for West Nile and Acholi (LEWA) program, the project was funded with support from European Union and supervised by the Office of the Prime Minister, implemented by Development Initiative for Northern Uganda (DINU) and other partners.

The center which will act as an agriculture production, storage and value addition facility in Terego district targeting benefiting farmers that are registered in groups as cooperatives. Among the most advocated crops to be planted by the farmers are oil seed crops to feed the local processing plant such that cooking oil can be locally processed at the facility.

While presiding over the commissioning of the projects on Wednesday 26th April 2023, as the Chief Guest, Hon. Grace Freedom Kwiyochwiny, the state Minister for Northern Uganda, advices farmers to own the facility to change their livelihoods since the products from the facility will be daily basic needs with ready market both locally and beyond. "I would like the owner's to own this project and remind them that this is a very big project and an expensive project. But this is also a project which can support them for a long life. There has been no history of manufacturing in this district and also in this region.


Minster Kwiyucwiny after commissioning the centre

So if this is promoted, we are going to be getting a lot of cooking oil locally and maybe cheaply. We will also be getting a lot of animal feed because the sunflower cake can go for poultry, it can go for pigs also cheaply. So it will expand the value chain not only for producing sunflower but it will also be for supporting the animal industry," Kwiyochwiny explained.

Terego district Chairperson, Wilfred Saka, assures the partners saying the farmers in the district have the capacity and capability to put to proper use the facility. "There are a number of farmer groups created and being supported. We will want to see competition among them as in who is creating more wealth from these livelihood programs. I have seen our people are slowly beginning to cope up in terms creating livelihood and wealth and they are doing very well. This food store here is not going to be redundant," Saka assured.

Meanwhile, Solomon Toko, the Chairperson LCIII of Bilaffe Sub-county admitted that many farmers in the Sub-county have been cheated in the past by middle men who take advantage of them and buy their produce at very low prices which they set themselves due to the inability of the farmers to negotiate for better prices. "In this area, we are known for growing high quality sesame (simsim) and other oil seed crops but people were selling them through middle men. Last year we generated a lot of sesame in this area, a lot of ground nuts, a lot of soya beans and a lot of sunflower. So we feel with this aggregation center, since people have very small houses, they will be able to bring their products here and it shall be received and records taken very properly. About the milling facility, this is very important to us here. We want to start milling locally here. We have enough sesame, sunflower. This is going to add value to the activities we do in the Sub-county and in the districts and then to the farmers

Jane Alioru, a farmer from Njayia united farmers says, this intervention will go a long way in improving the lives of the residences and it solves their previous challenges. "We are going to bedtime front the centre because we shall be collecting our products together at the center so that we get better prices. In the past we used to keep our harvests at home and we have been losing a lot especially when rats invade our houses," Alioru explained.

Meanwhile another farmer identified as William Egama, discourages farmers from working individually because it will always create pressure on them to sell at lower prices. The project targets supporting the farmer groups in the district and refugee farmers in the settlements located in the district. 

Under the same program across the region, 16 aggregation centers in total have so far been set up with 06 newly constructed, 10 have been rehabilitated
The Objectives of the Aggregation centers are to improve post-harvest and storage practices in order to prevent aflatoxin contamination and enable bulking so that farmers can negotiate better prices for the products on the market.

COVER PHOTO: Minister for northern Uganda Grace Freedom Kwiyucyiny while cutting the ribbon to open the centre By Godwin Abedican