RE: COTTON FARMERS CONCERNS
Mr. President , I wish to refer you to the National Development Plan of the Republic of Uganda which you approved and made public, the National Resistance Movement (NRM) Campaign Manifesto 2010, and other government flag ship programmes which the government has endorsed as National strategies to creating wealth and employment for the youths.
Mr. President, following the flagship programmes on wealth creation of the Government of Uganda, I personally and single handily mobilized the youths in my village and sub county to embrace the government program and picked on farming. I offered land in Bukangara, Nyakiyumbu Sub county, Kasese District, to begin with the youth planted ground nuts in March, 2011. The proceeds from ground nuts, were invested in Cotton farming for which we thought we shall get a better deal following your advice to the youths to become self employed and to engage in gain full work.
Mr. President, we planted 10 acres of cotton where we invested as follows; hire of land UGX 250,000/ X 10 = 2,500,000/ hire of tractor UGX 80,000/X 10= 800,000/= , 5 bags of cotton seeds 5X 3000= 15000, pestcides, UGX 200,000/=, Food and Water, Shs. 500,000/, labour during weeding, UGX 80,000 X 4X 10 = 2,400,000. Other general costs like air time linking to the tractor managers, transport, supervision UGX 500,000/, total UGX 6,915,000/. This is recorded expenditure for a single group, but there are many more farmers in the cotton sector, if this is multiplied by the total number of cotton acreage, the farmers have indeed invested a lot and paid taxes while procuring inputs like pest cides, cotton seeds thus contributing to the national treasury even before harvesting cotton.
Mr. President this is a single case, Kasese district is a cotton belt but the farmers are concerned about the cotton prices that were announced in the media. At the beginning of November 2011, the Cotton Development Organization announced a price of UGX 1,600/ as farm-gate price in the Media (Kasese Guide Radio) but while the Hon. Minister of Agriculture was appearing before the committee of Parliament on Wednesday, 14th December, the Hon. Minster’s response to the questions by the committee were un satisfactory and I was prompted to seek the audience of the President through the media to expeditiously come to the plight of the cotton farmers who by now have no clear information about farm-gate price for cotton. The sadden news that cotton farmers in Soroti have cut down cotton were shocking, what will the farmers pay back to the SACCOS which you have single handily supported for the last 10 years.
Mr. President, while I support liberalization of the economy, you might recall how you have changed the milk industry , the cotton farmers have not had a chance of engaging with you on how we can change the sector but only relay on the private sector which has decided to cheat us while we had invested a lot of money in the process. I therefore, request you Mr. President, that as a voice of the people of Uganda who entrusted you with power through our vote, and as a revolutionalist and farmer, you use your constitutional powers to prevent the cotton farmers from being cheated and government sets a minimal price of cotton at UGX 2,500/ per KG. If the cotton sector is ignored by you, our economy is likely to lose a lot based on what we earned from the cotton in the last financial year.
For God and My Country
Jimmy Baluku Odyek
Cotton Farmer in, Bukangara, Nyakiyumbu Sub county Kasese District
jimodyek@gmail.com
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