Production & Marketing
The overall vision, mission and investment strategy of the agricultural sector in Uganda is guided by six principles that are derived from the county’s experiences, the agricultural sector strategy plan (ASSP 2015/16, 2019/20) and the national development plan (NDP2).
It is from the same background that Kanungu district Local government production department derives its mission “provision of agricultural extension / advisory services in the field of crop, livestock, fisheries and water for production that will bring an increase in production and productivity leading to social economic development of the district”
DEPARTMENT CONTACT
productionofficekanungu@gmail.com
ROLES AND OBJECTIVES OF THE DEPARTMENT.
 To promote food security and house hold income
 To empower farmers to access and utilize available extension services
 To promote farmer groups to develop capacity to manage farming enterprises
 To promote use of appropriate labor saving technologies
 To promote use quality agro inputs
 To promote private sector participation agricultural value chain
 To strengthen mainstreaming of cross cutting issues (environment, gender, HIV/AIDS)
- Agriculture extension services which are the responsibility of local governments have been reformed to promote services to farmers on high yielding and commercial enterprises. This has been done through a Programme for Modernization of Agriculture (PMA). The PMA has key components of research, national advisory services, agro processing and marketing.
- We employ a pro-people approach in transforming households to improve food security, nutrition and stabilize incomes. Crop farming contributes to 53 of the population and employment. We have improved access to agricultural extension services and productivity by focusing on agronomy and animal husbandry, agribusiness, reduction of post-harvest losses and marketing, targeting women and youth. Extension services focus on banana, coffee, beans and ground-nut production, which contribute a big production output in the District. The District had deployed extension workers all the 17 lower local governments.
- Currently, we prevent and control diseases among exotic and indigenous cattle breeds through vaccinations, regulating movement and providing advisory services to farmers. We further protect consumers by inspecting slaughter places and products.
- Our Fisheries sector, promotes fish farming (aqua-culture); advisory services to farmers on pond construction, fertilization, feeding and harvesting; enforcing fish Regulations, ensuring quality of stock and fish farming inputs supplied to fish farmers. Privately owned fish ponds are 592 (sizes are 100 m2 to 1000m2). There are no stocked public valley dams. The average fish production is 9.2 tonnes from private ponds and the annual fish stock is valued at UGX 92 million.
Entomological services include promotion of bee keeping and tsetse control. Through Trade & Commercial services, we supervise cooperatives and promoting trade in the district. Atotal of 150,000Kgs of honey is produced in the District per annum.
- The concept of ‘land use planning’ is still new and is only limited extent in the townships, where specific areas are assigned for industries, commercial building, residential, road networks and institutional sites. Also to note is that it has remained difficult even to implement these structural plans
- Subsistence agriculture is the major economic activity in the District employing 81% of the District labour force. This is characterized by use of poor methods of farming and low levels of production and productivity. Major crops grown include maize, bananas, beans, coffee, ground nuts and cassava. Major Livestock kept include pigs, poultry, goats, cattle, and sheep.
- Poor methods of agricultural production have led to deforestation, soil degradation and wetland encroachment across the District. These environmental hazards have orchestrated the Climate Change in the District manifested by droughts and heavy storms which has in turn undermined agricultural production and productivity. More so, there is gender imbalance in agricultural production characterized by dominance of women and children in the downstream stages of production like tilling of land, planting, weeding and harvesting. Men are more involved in the upstream stages of production like value addition and marketing and therefore control the proceeds from agriculture which is a disincentive to agricultural production among women.