Farmers should reap from fruit factories

Yumbe farmers are bitter after a fruit factory established to provide a market for their mangoes is not yet in operation.
The National Agricultural Advisory Services (Naads) says it constructed the factory and installed the required equipment and handed it over to a private investor, NileZila, 
NileZila is a company formed through a partnership between Uganda Development Corporation (UDC), Food and Nutrition Solution (FoNuS), and the Aringa Fruit Farmers’ Cooperative Society Ltd. FoNuS holds 41 shares, UDC has 39 shares, and the Aringa Fruit Farmers’ Cooperative Society holds 20 shares.

According to the officials at NileZila, the company handles operations of the factory such as processing fruits while Aringa Fruit Farmers’ Cooperative Society Limited is expected to mobilise the farmers and supply mangoes to the factory through an established chain.
The factory has the capacity to crush five tonnes of mangoes every hour and operates 24/7. 

However, the director of Aringa Fruit Farmer’s Cooperative Society and also a board member of NileZila, Mr Yassin Taban, told this publication recently that the factory needs additional equipment, ordered from abroad, to kickstart operations. He explained that the Uganda National Bureau of Standards was yet to certify the equipment that were transported to the factory in the past few weeks.
He, however, said the factory would be fully operational by December and encouraged farmers to maintain their trees so as to supply mangoes by the end of the year.  

Farmers grapple with the vagaries of climate change, thieves and fires, among others, and should not have technical failures at the factory added to the list of their challenges.
While NileZila officials are optimistic about the factory’s operations in months to come, it is upsetting that no prior research was done to ascertain the capacity of farmers in West Nile and whether or not they will be able to supply the factory all year round.

Worse still, there could be a case of a factory lying idle or operating below capacity as farmers’ fruits rot as witnessed in Teso Sub-region. The $14 million Soroti Fruit Factory that was commissioned in 2019, was operating below capacity. The government leased out the factory to a private investor last month to revive it.

But in the case of Teso, the National Agricultural Research Organisation (Naro) conducted studies in the 1990s on citrus farming following the collapse of the cattle economy due to raids in the 1980s. 
Based on Naro’s findings, establishment of Soroti Fruit Factory was mooted. However, farmers in Teso have also cried over losses incurred due to the factory operating below capacity amid claims of mismanagement.