Lango, Teso receive cassava chipping machines worth shs1.5b

By Isabella Awor Olong

Dokolo—10, October 2021: Dokolo district on Wednesday 6, October received 9 cassava chipping machines and drying racks from Building Resilience to Enhance Food and Nutrition Security Income and Health in Northern Uganda (BRENU).

BRENU is working under the Development Initiative for Northern Uganda (DINU), a government of Uganda programme supported by the European Union and supervised by the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM).

A total of 85 cassava chippers, 85 drying racks, 71 soybean threshers, rice threshers and grain cleaners are being distributed by BRENU to smallholder farmers, especially youth groups, women groups and cooperatives in 7 districts in Lango sub region.

Beneficiary districts are Dokolo, Apac, Amolatar, Otuke and Kwania. For Teso sub region, Kapelebyong and Amuria are districts to benefit.

According to Anna Odongo Lumumba, the Resident District Commissioner of Dokolo who officially flagged off the distribution of the machines at the district headquarters, she applauded the initiative and said it will help to uplift the livelihoods of farmers in Dokolo.

Meanwhile, the Deputy CAO Dokolo Richard Odoch Poromoi said the biggest challenge farmers face is post-harvest handling. He said now that they gave the equipments to farmers it will help in improving the quality of produce which will improve on their livelihood.

International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) leads the implementation of BRENU together with a consortium of 5 partners; VEDCO, Kilimo Trust, Rikotlo, ECUREI and Bioversity International.

Similarly, Amolatar District also received 12 chippers and 12 drying racks from BRENU, according to Deputy Chief Administration Officer, Abdalla Awuye. He applauded the initiative and also advised that (BRENU) should scale the project to other sub counties because most farmers in Amolatar grow cassava.

Perez Muchunguzi is the project manager of BRENU who said the project is trying to ensure that farmers produce quality products in order to get sufficient market and hence income. He also promised more support to the farmers in order to do away with post-harvest losses.

Total investment on the machines distributed by BRENU in the seven districts in Lango and Teso sub-regions cost UGX 1,531, 530,000.

In Dokolo district, women, youth groups and co-operatives in Amwoma sub-county and Okwongodul sub-county were donated cassava chipping machine and drying racks and in Amolatar, women, youth groups and co-operatives in Muntu and Arwotek sub-counties also received the same equipments.

Susan Eyura, who is the Sub-county chief of Arwotek in Amolatar district, advised farmers to make good use of the cassava chipping machines and drying racks because it eases their work. She requested for more equipments for farmers, adding that “because cassava planting needs a lot of support in order to yield good harvest”.