Posted on August, 3, 2023 at 10:33 am
Ugandan farmers can now purchase subsidized quality silage, hay, and assorted compound animal feeds from 9 government ranches, Chimp Corps report.
The farms, which are distributed across all regions of the country, are Aswa, Got Apoy, Maruzi, Sanga, Nshaara, Kasolwe, Lusenke, Ruhengyere and Rubona
The National Animal Genetic Resources Centre and Data Bank (NAGRC & DB), a government body charged with spearheading the commercialization of animal breeding activities in Uganda, said the “ranch price of 1kg of silage is at Shs 500, a 17 kg bale of Chloris gayana hay at Shs 10,000, and 1kg of assorted compound animal feed at Shs 1500.”
Countrywide, farmers have been grappling with a problem of shortage of animal feed in all agro-enterprises of cattle, goat, sheep, piggery, poultry, and aquaculture with the available few producers overpricing their animal feed eating into the profit margin of farmers leading to the collapse of many agro-businesses.
In August 2022, cabinet adopted the Ministry of Agriculture paper on strategic intervention to boost food and animal feed security in the country in which NAGRC&DB was approved as a participating agency for the production of maize and soya bean on a total of 30,000 acres spread out across its farms and ranches.
Towards the end of this July’s harvesting season, NAGRC&DB unleashed tonnes of high-quality animal feed at a subsidized price intended to benefit farmers countrywide within their respective parishes, mostly those that have been affected by severe drought that ravaged the country.
NAGRC&DB owns vast land totaling up to 144,640 acres (226 square miles) distributed across all its 15 ranches and farms in different regions of Uganda.
According to a report by the Ministry of Agriculture, some of the farms and ranches run by NAGRC & have been supported with basic infrastructure to capacitate the agency towards sustainable animal feed production.
Some of the infrastructures include a 5MT/hr animal feed processing factory at Kasolwe. At the same farm, the government has also installed grain storage facilities with a capacity to process and store up to 3000 megatons and 288 megatons of both maize and soya bean respectively.
Additionally, a warehouse for appropriate storage of animal feed has been installed at Kasolwe.
As one way of scaling up and ensuring a sustainable supply of enough quantities of highly nutritious safe and affordable animal feeds in the country, the report further reveals that NAGRC&DB has acquired equipment and machinery to utilize during fully mechanized bush clearing in both primary and secondary tillage, pest and weed control as well as harvest and post harvest handling.
Within 5 years, the entity hopes to have activated 38400 acres for sustainable production of corn for grain (12,800 acres), corn for silage (9600 acres), and Cloris Gayana intercropped with legumes for hay ( 3200 acres), soybean(64,00 acre) and super Napier(3200 acres).
Experts observe that once this program is fully implemented, NAGRC & DB will help in animal feed import substitution which will stabilize the local market, earn government revenue, and also become a self-financing government entity saving billions of shillings the government has been spending on it to run its activities.