Kampala – Youth in Uganda have been urged to embrace commercial agriculture in a bid to fight unemployment in the country.
According to latest findings compiled by Uganda Bureau of Statistic (UBOS), at least 41 percent of youth, which represents 9.3 million aged between 18 and 30 years are not engaged in any productive activity.
The findings contained in the Uganda National Labour Force Survey released last month indicate that the 9.3 million youth are neither in education, employment or receiving training.
Joshua Laban Musinguzi, the President
Coalition for SDGs and founder of Agrofresh Uganda says the agriculture sector presents vast opportunities which the youth can take up to reduce the unemployment rate.
Musinguzi made the remarks on Monday during a media consultative meeting ahead of the 1st National Empowerment and Development in Commercial Agriculture conference scheduled for 8th – 9th this month at Makerere Business School (MUBS) Nakawa.
Musinguzi said the conference organised with support from Bank of Uganda and YO Uganda Limited among other partners is open to all members of the public.
The conference he said, will bring together relevant stakeholders in the agricultural value chain who will be engaged to create better opportunities for youth involvement.
“During the conference, the youth will learn how to engage in modern agriculture, access to capital and how to get market for their agricultural products,” said Musinguzi
He noted that some of the activities at the conference include high level dialogues where officials from institutions like Bank of Uganda, YO Uganda Limited, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Agriculture and National Organic Farmers Movement of Uganda (NOGMU) among others will take part.
“There will also be exhibitions and expo as well as awards to farmers based on their contribution towards the agricultural sector,” Musinguzi added
Meanwhile, in a bid to promote commercial farming, the Agricultural Credit Facility (ACF) was set up in 2009 by Government of Uganda in partnership with Commercial Banks, Uganda Development Bank Ltd, Microfinance Deposit taking Institutions and Credit Institutions to facilitate the provision of short, medium and long-term loans to projects engaged in agriculture and agro-processing at more favorable terms.
The scheme is administered by the Bank of Uganda (BoU) and the loans under ACF are disbursed through the Participating Financial Institution (PFI).
Phiona Naigaga a Credit Analyst at Agricultural Credit Facility (ACF), BoU says eligible entities include private sector businesses or individuals, partnerships, companies, SACCOs (whether small, medium or large in size)operating in Uganda and engaged in Agriculture, agro-processing and the grain trade among others.
“The maximum loan amount is upto Shs 2.1 billion. However, this can be lifted on a case-by-case basis for eligible projects that add significant value to the agricultural sector and the economy as a whole,” said Naigaga.
She noted that the interest rate to the final borrower is upto a maximum of 12% per annum which is fixed throughout the load period and that potential borrowers can channel their applications through financial institutions of their choice.
