The Islamic Development Bank (ISDB) is to invest 71.6 million dollars in the rice project in the areas Bugweri and Bugiri district for the period of five years. The aim to increase rice production in Uganda for both exports and rice production in Uganda.
Rice production in Uganda is still largely practiced on a small scale with seeds of poor quality and bad post harvest handling methods.
A farmer in Bugweri district Jonathan Mukose says he lost a one million shillings investment while engaged in rice farming. He blames his rice farming failure on use of rudimentary methods because that is all he could afford with the loan he had taken out.
Simon Peter Abang, a commissioner in the Ministry of Agriculture, agrees that basic farming practices are responsible for poor rice outputs.
He welcomes the Islamic Development Bank initiative to invest long term in Bugweri and Bugiri districts.
Zfer Ozkan, a team leader on this project from ISDB, says farmers will be trained in all aspects of the value chain and financial training will be another key aspect
Agriculture minister Vicent Ssempijja believes the project improve rice production in Uganda and house hold income in these areas.
The project will use over 3,000 hectares of land and 9,000 farmers will be benefit from this project
Currently Uganda produces 165,000 metric tons of rice and this is below the demand the reason why Uganda still import rice from Pakistan, Ghana among other countries.