Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) advocating for farmers’ rights have asked government to introduce agricultural credit finance for small hold farmers to enable the produce in large quantities.
The farmer’s CSOs led by the National Farmers’ Association (NFA) and Caritas Uganda say that agricultural productivity has gone down due to limited accessible agricultural credit financing.
While addressing a farmers’ meeting on agricultural financing held at Hotel Africana in Kampala on Wednesday this week, the Liaison Officer at Central Archdiocesan Province Caritas Association Uganda, Joseph Bukenya says that farmers need a credit financing where they can be charged only interest of 4% which they can afford especially when there a farmers bank.
He added that commercial farmers are well catered for by the banks which the small holder farmers cannot get because of the high interest rates charged.
Bukenya also says that government has to copy some of agriculture policies from some other countries like Germany where farmers are given interest free credit.
The policy analyst at the Uganda National Farmer’s Federation (UNFFE, Prudence Ayibale urged government to sensitize farmers about the existence agricultural insurance fund so that they can insure against risks in their agribusiness
The agricultural activists also say that the current agricultural finance does not unlock Uganda’s agricultural potential.
