Teso leaders have called on government to improve Oilseed production in the sub-region.

By Skika Reporter.

This was arrived at during the national OILSEED project performance review meeting involving local government stakeholders, farmer representatives, and NGOs supporting the project to review its performance held in Soroti city on Wednesday.

Phiona Ninsiima Value chain Team leader National oilseed project (NOSP) under ministry of agriculture Animal industry and fisheries (MAAIF) says this is seven-year oilseed project funded by international fund for agriculture development (IFAD) together with Opec fund for international development (OFID) supporting value chain development handled by MAAIF and market linkages through infrastructure implemented by the ministry of local governments.

She notes that the project is Implemented in 81 districts across six hubs namely Northern Uganda west Nile, Mid northern Uganda, mid-western, Eastern and Karamoja focusing on ensuring that the small holder farmer has access to inputs and markets.

“National oilseed project is aimed at transforming the oilseed sector of Uganda by improving commercialization of small holder farmers by looking at four enterprises which include, G-nuts, soy beans, sunflower and Simsim”. Ninsiima

Ninsiima noted that the project was designed after seeing a huge gap that exists when it comes to the domestic demand of vegetable oil in the country.

“We still have a gap of 320,000 metric tones that is not met locally and it is filled with imported vegetable oil that approximately equates to 300million USD yet the local companies have the capacity to fulfil this gap with vegetable oil but lack access to the raw materials for processing”. Ninsiima said

Dr Gerald Oballim, senior research officer at NASARRI, said they are currently developing climate resilient varieties to improve production of oilseed through partnership with MAAIF so that farmers can benefit from oilseed production.

Carolyne Asekenye Ikodet district agricultural officer Serere said they have trained farmers on agronomy, and established demonstration farms to show them how this crop can be better grown among others things.

Norah, a member of P’kwi farmer to farmer cooperative Bukedea, said they still face a problem of diseases that attack oilseed crops, especially G-nut called Rosette, Soil infertility, high cost of soil testing, lack of information on whether patterns, among others.