Submitted by Juliana Mandha on Fri, 23/06/2017 - 20:12 Permalink
Education, Education, and Education. As Nelson Mandela stated, "Education is the most powerful weapon that you can use to change the world", I totally agree with him. Knowledge is Power. If women are equipped the right knowledge and skills, then they can transform their small-scale Agriculture into large scale. This can be in form of practices to minimize post-harvest losses, diversification of products, better farming methods, better breed varieties, effecting marketing strategies, mitigating climate change, and the list goes on. I should, however, emphasize that education does not begin or end in the classroom. Yes, with more agricultural professionals, there is faster and permanent advancement. The future is secure as this is long term. These researchers can be a source of innovation to Agricultural problems. T. In the short term, community initiatives that offer immediate solutions and skills to women farmers should be scaled up. It is of vital importance that these intiatives are customised or tailored to the community where they opperate because different commnuties face difference challenges hence require different needs.
Submitted by Juliana Mandha on Wed, 14/06/2017 - 17:44 Permalink
Despite the fact that agriculture is an important sector in Uganda, contributing about 23% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and employing more than 80% of the population, our economy is not performing according to expectations
This may be an indicator that there is more that is needed than just food production. In leadership roles, fewer women than men are sitting at the decision-making tables. These ae managerial positions of agricultural enterprises and/or policy makers on the laws, regulations or policies that govern trade, agriculture, or agricultural products. These key positions have a huge capacity of transforming food produce into profits through infrastructure, trade tariffs, marketing at an international or national level, industrial processing, and preservation and building of partnerships.
Agribusiness
Submitted by Juliana Mandha on Mon, 26/06/2017 - 16:40 Permalink
Agribusiness is another initiative that could be scaled up by the AfDB. In Uganda for example, 70% of the population lives in rural areas and are smallholder farmers. However almost half of the population lives below a dollar per day. Uganda is also known as the Pearl of Africa has favorable climate and fertile soils for farming. However, there is a mismatch between agricultural productivity and the income, more so at the household level. Women farmers need entrepreneurship and agribusiness skills to gain a competitive advantage of their produce. And with the integration of the East African community, they have to be ready and equipped to maximize opportunities while minimizing risks.