Farmers’ news: ‘We pray for huge harvests in 2022’—EFOTI

“Let’s toast to yesterday’s achievements and tomorrow’s bright future.”

Zombo—24, December 2022: Year 2021 will end with major characteristics: unpredictable weather which immensely affected farmers, and those who made some harvests had transportation and market issues because of Covid-19 lockdown.

In June 2016, President Yoweri Museveni identified ten (10) major challenges to the agricultural sector in Uganda. Low commercial agricultural levels, lack of linkage between research and farmers.

Others were low use of fertilizers, low coverage of irrigation, land fragmentation, low level of value addition, high cost of finance, among others.

It is worth to note that from 2019 to 2021, when he announced lockdown to help control the spread of the pandemic, Museveni left doors open for agriculture sector and farmers. This was to allow the sector and its players to plant enough food to feed the population and keep the economy stable.

According to the data available, the agriculture sector Value Added declined by 2.2 percent in Quarter One (Q1) 2020/2021 compared to 11.7 percent growth registered in Q4 2019/2020.

The Valued Added for the sector declined from 7,531 billion shillings in Q4 2019/2020 to 7,367 billion shillings in Q1 2019/2020.

In terms of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the share of agriculture increased to 19.9 percent in 2020-21 from 17.8 percent in 2019-20. “The last time the contribution of the agriculture sector in GDP was at 20 per cent was in 2003-04,” according to the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS).

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Prayers

The Edwin Foundation Tea Initiative, commonly known as EFOTI, hopes for a fruitful 2022. The Foundation is the leading private company in tea research, tea farming and management, value addition; enhancement of farmers’ capacity, among other tasks, in the agriculture sector.

In its Christmas and End of Year message to Ugandans who are farmers, EFOTI prays, “From all of us at EFOTI LTD, we continue to thank you, and we pray all we worked for in 2021 gets huge harvest in 2022.”

“Let’s toast to yesterday’s achievements and tomorrow’s bright future.”

Speaking on the challenging year for him and most farmers across the country and Northern Uganda where EFOTI currently works, Edwin Atukunda Beekunda who is the EFOTI Director says, “In order to see God’s promises come to pass in your life, you need endurance.”

“The key is to wait with a good attitude. Our tea farmers should have hope and continue to pray for reliable weather for good yields,” Atukunda adds.