Youths urged to join commercial agric to fight unemployment

Dr Gudula Naiga Basaza, executive director of Gudie Leisure Farm has called upon youths to engage in commercial agriculture to rescue themselves from poverty and high rates of unemployment.

Speaking at the Elgon region spotlight business symposium and cultural immersion held at the Gudie Leisure farm in Kira on June 12, Gudula said youths can solve some of the challenges affecting them through commercial agriculture.

“We are positioning agriculture as one of the drivers of economic development and we believe that if youths continue engaging in it and in clusters, it will be easier to uplift their affairs,” she noted.

Gudula said that they have so far trained at least 300 youths from 50 parishes of Uganda's Elgon region in agriculture.

“These 300 youths have trained over 10,000 of their colleagues and we believe that they will transform the region through alternative agriculture like cattle keeping,” she noted. 

This month’s symposium was organized to specifically look at the Elgon region's agriculture tourism and other investment potential.  

Speaking at the Symposium, Dr Fred Kagoda, a scientist from the National Agriculture Research Organisation (NARO) encouraged the youth to follow agronomy while planting their crops to enable them yield massively.

“Agronomy deals with field crop production and soil management. So, if you follow clear practices, you will harvest more yields than when you don’t that’s why you see people are getting six bags of maize from an acre, yet the actuals yield would be 30 bags,” he emphasized. 

“We urge youths to always visit our demonstration farms so that we train them on how to handle these things,” he added. 

Othieno Odoi, the senior planner in-charge of trade and tourism at the National Planning Authority (NPA) called upon youth to engage in value addition in order to benefit from commercial agriculture.

“Government has enacted laws and policies aimed at enabling smooth running of agriculture in the country. We also have 20 running programs with agro-industrialisation inclusive, where we aim at transforming agriculture and other sectors,” he revealed. 

Background

Gudie Leisure Farm was established in 2019 as an NGO to transform African agribusiness by empowering the youth to set up agro-based enterprises that can competently thrive on the global scene. 

It currently operates in 500 parishes and 50 divisions in 23 districts across Uganda, offering its network of 112.300 micro and small enterprises. 

It also operates in 6 refugee settlements- Rwamwanja, Kiryandongo, Maaji, Nakivale, Rhino and Kyangwali. Within the Lango region,

The farm has incubated 240 Youth Agripreneur Champions from 40 Parishes, who have since returned to the region and incubated over 4000 Youth Agripreneur Champions out of school and 4800 Youth Agri- Club Agripreneurs (youth in school).