Archive for category: Cooperative

We Effect and Vi Agroforestry have combined office space to enable improved collaboration and stronger support for their projects.

While speaking at the launch of the new offices in Muyenga, in September 2018, Mr. Elijah Kajubi, the Programme Officer for Rural Development at We Effect, said that sharing office space will make the two organisations a stronger team.

“The structure is similar in Nairobi and other countries,” said Mr. Kajubi. “This set up gives us strength in terms of accessing resources from our donors, the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA), he added.

We Effect will benefit from in-house experts in agroforestry, while Vi Agroforestry will benefit from We Effect’s long experience in working through partnerships.

Mr. Kajubi said that their clients, many of whom are cooperatives, will benefit from a wider knowledge and resource base.

“Vi Agroforestry has plenty of technical expertise in environmental sustainability. They are a diverse team which promotes; biogas usage, shed trees in coffee plantations, water conservation, use of clean energy, use of specific agroforestry tree species and generally agriculture. This means cooperatives will have easier access to resources on sustainable land management practices,” Mr. Kajubi said.

We Effect is a development organisation founded by the cooperative movement. The organisation supports projects that are meant to uplift and strengthen cooperatives.

Vi Agroforestry is a Swedish Development cooperation organisation, fighting poverty and improving the environment through agroforestry. The organisation promotes sustainable land management methods through training and expert advice, among other strategies.

The two are different organisations but with the same founders. Both are Swedish founded and born out of the cooperative movement. This means they have a very strong background because the cooperative movement in Sweden has been active for over 100 years.

To commemorate the event, leaders from the two organisations planted a tree.

The post Cooperatives to Benefit from We Effect, Vi Agroforestry Collaboration appeared first on The Cooperator News.

By Alexander Okori,

Soroti

The long awaited multi-billion Teso fruit factory is set to be commissioned this month, October 2018. To boost returns through increased bargaining power, citrus farmers have been urged to form cooperatives.

“I appeal to farmers to form cooperatives in their districts and sub-counties. These will in turn have citrus collection centres where buyers will come at specific days,” said Mr. Jorem Opian, the Chairman of Teso Tropical Fruit Cooperative Union.

While speaking at a meeting with citrus farmers in September 2018, Mr. Opian said many farmers sell their citrus individually during market days, and fetch low returns due to exploitation by middlemen.

“I have seen brokers buying oranges at Soroti market, where many farmers sell a 100 kilogram sack at average of Shs. 25000-30000, which is comparatively low. If those farmers sold their oranges per kilogram, they would probably fetch twice the price,” said Mr. Opian.

The establishment of the factory has been an ongoing project since 2015 and many have expressed concern over the delay in schedule.

In September 2018, Minister for Trade, Industry and Cooperatives, Hon. Amelia Kyambadde reaffirmed government’s commitment to ensure that the factory begins commercial production in late October 2018. The Minister was speaking during a ceremony to hand over 40 mechanical spray pumps to Teso Tropical Fruit Cooperative Union.

“The factory is expected to process; over six metric tons of oranges per hour, two metric tonnes of mangoes per hour and four metric tonnes of pineapple per hour, amounting to 648,000 tonnes of oranges per year and 25,000 tonnes of mangoes per year,” said Hon. Kyambadde.

The Minister said the objective of the project is to increase the incomes of the fruit farmers by providing readily accessible and fairly priced market.

Teso sub region has three million fruit trees with a potential production of 600,000 metric tonnes of fruit per year.

The contracted fruit supplier for the factory is Teso Tropical Fruit Cooperative Union yet their current supply does not meet the factory demand. Herein lies the opportunity for cooperatives.

The post Teso Fruit Factory to Be Commissioned at End of October 2018 appeared first on The Cooperator News.

Lango cooperatives have cashed over shs 2.72 billion in sunflower production.

Ngetta Tropical Holdings (NTH), the producer of Virgin Gold cooking oil based in Lira is working with farmer cooperatives, to provide guaranteed market for sunflower seeds. The cooperatives are planting Agsun 8251 sunflower seeds which are imported from South Africa and sold to the farmers at a fair price.

With the unpredictable weather conditions in some parts of the country, there are numerous outcries from farmers, with regard to the impact of weather conditions on the quantity and quality of harvest.

However, for over 40 farmer cooperatives in Northern Uganda especially in Lango region which registered viable production of Agsun 8251 during the first season this year, their story is positive.

MARKET

Not like alarms made on maize price, these cooperatives produce with ready market set by NTH at a price of 1,100 shillings per kilo.

Mr. Enyang George, the Manager, Production & Special Projects at Ngetta Tropical Holdings who spoke to this news site revealed that since 1 July 2018 there are 2,473,000 tons of grains in stock, only bought from the members of cooperatives.

Mr. Enyang said these cooperatives were able to cash in over 2.72 billion shillings for the Agsun 8251 grains they produced and sold to NTH.

“Farmers should produce, store and market together” says Mr. Enyang for our community to realize the strength of a cooperative.

Lapul and Puranga farmer cooperatives in Pader are amongst the cooperatives dealing in this production alongside over 40 others in Lango.

In addition to sunflower, the cooperatives are involved in production of other crops.

Virgin Gold Cooking Oil, accredited by UNBS was launched on 16 August 2018.

The post Lango Cooperatives Bag Shs 2.7 Billion appeared first on The Cooperator News.