Farmers must be helped to market their produce

Farming is a business in which it is not easy to avoid taking pragmatic decisions. The farmer must be prepared to change their plans sometimes in order to cope with the changing challenges that keep cropping up.
Sometimes the harvest is poor and other times the harvest surpasses the expected yields. 
Since farmers tend to plant at the start of the rain season there is a tendency for nearly all of them to harvest at the same time.

Now when all the farmers in the neighbourhood harvest a crop such as beans at the same time and in plenty, it is likely that the supply will exceed demand which could result in low bean prices and reduced profits for the farmers.
A farmer keen on earning bigger profits must make smart decisions and do what the other farmers are not doing. 
Perhaps they will find a safe place in which to store the beans and sell them a little later when majority of fellow farmers have disposed of their beans. Shortage of a commodity tends to make it more expensive. By storing the beans safely the farmers could hit much better prices.
Some farm products are easily perishable and might not be so easily stored. Fruits, vegetables, and items such as milk or meat may go bad within a short time. Such farmers may opt to make quick arrangements to transport the products to places where they will be easily bought. 

Many farmers choose to grow easily perishable crops near the consuming areas such as towns.  However if they are bulky transport costs could make it less profitable to have the products taken to the market. Some farmers have the capacity to store the perishable goods in refrigerators or to dry them. 
Dry jack fruit or sweet banana can be sold later at fairly good prices. Some local vegetables such as katunkuma and ggobe can be dries and crushed into powder to be sold and consumed months after harvest.

Farmers must be careful about how and when to decide to produce a commodity. There could be a big demand and good prices for a product such as tomatoes right now. 
That observation may however be made by very many other farmers who may also rush to grow tomatoes only for every farmer in the area to discover that the market is flooded with tomatoes and the demand for them is no more.

Mr Michael Ssali is a veteran journalist, 
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