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: 15 April 2016; Hits: 6760

Farmers make higher sales through WhatsApp

Kenyan farmers with smart-phones can reach out to buyers of their produce by engaging buyers on customised social media groups.

Two Indian organic farmers, who have led by example, are enjoying a sure and constant market for their short season products after creating a WhatsApp group that has grown its membership to 80 since August 2015.

Santhosh Kittur and Abhijit Kamath from Kadabi and Murgod villages respectively report better sales, which they attribute to 'Chemical-free produce' WhatsApp group.

The platform is helping them share photos of their produce with their clients, who see see and make orders.

Kittur, who holds a diploma in electronics has been farming for six years, met Kamatha and they agreed to work together on the group although each of them has separate farm.

Kamath has been cultivating a variety of crops on his 12-acre farm for 14 years.

Each of them has grown different veggies including ridge gourd, bitter gourd, cucumber, cluster beans cabbage, tomatoes, capsicum onions , garlic and green chilies on two acres.

The remaining acreage have non-seasonal crops like bananas. They keep rotating the vegetables to ensure constant produce for the market.

They sell their produce on Thursday and Sunday of every week.

If a customers make orders, they provide home delivery services.

“First preference is given to the members of the group. The system has worked well for us even financially,” Kittur told local newspaper, Deccan Herald.

“I feel proud and satisfied that we have an opportunity to provide people with fresh and safe produce,” Kamath said.

Interested farmers can also visit the farm to see the source of the produce.

The group name, Chemical-free produce, is helping to increase sales as more people shrink away from products grown with the help of agrochemicals.

The two have been recognised by the University of Agricultural Science, Dharwad, which honoured with the 'Outstanding Young Farmer award'.

Facebook and Twitter are other avenues open for exploitation with the ongoing increase in Internet access.

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: 15 April 2016; Hits: 4995

Rivals dismiss calls on UNDP to cut Uganda Bidco ties

A rival farmers association has defended Uganda's Bidco cooking oil processing project against accusations of land grabbing and deforestation.

Kalangala Oil Palm Growers Association (KOPGA) has termed allegation by Bugala Farmers Association (BFA) against Bidco's Palm Uganda Limited as non-factual and misleading.

KOPGA chairman Martin Lugambwa said that BFA is not a registered organisation that can articulate issues of people.

BFA recently sent a petition to the United Nations Development Programme, asking the international agency to cut ties with Palm Uganda Limited.

BFA claimed that more than 100 farmers lost land and 18,500 acres of rain forest on the Lake Victoria's island were cut down.

Lugambwa said the members of BFA are not known to anyone adding that KOPGA supports the project because it is a good People's Public Private Partnership initiative.

“We are proud to be a part of the project and the development it has brought to Bugala. Our farmers earn an average of UGX600 million (Kes18.1 million)a month from the sale of oil palm and this has the potential to reach UGX 1.5 billion per month (Kes45.3 million) when the plantations reach full maturity,” he said.

KOPGA says its 1800 farmers, the government of Uganda, and Oil Palm Uganda Limited are fully involved in the project.

Lugambwa insisted that land acquisition for Palm Uganda Limited, which is a subsidiary of Kenyan-founded Bidco, was done by the Ugandan government on “willing buyer willing seller basis”.

Kalangala Oil Palm Growers Trust General Manager Nelson Basaalide said the petition to UNDP “is a calculated ploy to discredit the otherwise clean oil palm development project”.

KOPGT is the implementing agency, which contracts farmers in this project.
The dismissal of deforestation claims were backed by a statement from Uganda's Minister of Agriculture, Vincent Rubarema.

The minister said the that Palm Uganda Limited had actually increased the vegetation cover on the island by 60 per cent.

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: 15 April 2016; Hits: 5232

Farmers unity defeats non-paying sugar millers

Farmers in sugar producing areas can dodge poor paying or collapsing State-owned millers by supplying their produce to private companies.

Those with large plantations, in western and Nyanza regions, are delivering their produce single-handedly while small-holders are uniting into groups to amass more cane before supplying.

Charles Odida, a farmer who started as a small-scale producer of maize and sugarcane, says the plan has see him receive revenue consistently for years from this company that was established in 1976.

“I have never missed payment for sugarcane delivered to West Kenya Sugar Company. They pay promptly. For the years I have been dealing with them, I have never been in arrears with them,” he said.

Because of the large quantities that the companies want to receive from farmers, small-holders have organised themselves into groups to meet the minimum set mass.

Some of the private companies in the region include Sony, Kibos Sugar and Allied Industries Ltd, Butali, Transmara, Sukari Industries, among others.

Odida has been delivering his produce since he was a small-scale farmer to the company, and he says relying on the State mills only pushes one to poverty as they go for months that roll into years without pay.

He says the option of forming clusters is the best solution that can shield farmers against government companies, which sell sugar, but cannot afford to pay on time due to persistent cash crises.

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