Residents in Apaa Township Abandon Farming over Fear

Kenneth Opoka the Local Chairperson for Lulai Village says that hundreds of farmers in his area have resorted to small scale farming majorly around their homesteads for fears that they may be attacked while cultivating in distant places.

Jackie Adure, a businesswoman at Gulu Main Market, says she gets her hibiscus from Kampala at 10,000 Shillings a kilogram and sells at 15,000 Shillings. However, Adure says that the sales always are very low, because few clients know it and how to consume it. She says when she buys 50 kilograms of hibiscus, it can take up to four months before it is all sold.

Speaking at the second graduation ceremony on Friday, Justice Benjamin Odoki, the Chancellor said that the university had adequate land which needs to be utilized with support from the government.

Kibiribiri says that the four-month-old tilapia fish had cost him over five million Shillings, and he had hoped that he would get more than 10 million Shillings in profit. He says that each of his three ponds had 5,000 fish.

Pela commodities has already started laying its machinery in the area near Soroti Fruit Factory. It is expected to handle 18 types of cereals and be able to sort, clean and dry 36 metric tonnes of cereals per hour, according to Isaiah Langa, one of the directors of Pela Commodities Limited. He adds that the plant will easily process over 600 metric tonnes of cereals in less than 24 hours.

Farmers say a few of them who have managed to plant suffered the high prices of the seeds which have shot during this planting season.

Oryema says although they have in the past been told to plant crops such as chili, dig trenches and set up beehives near their crop gardens these haven’t helped. He says that when he visited Kenya in 2015, he saw the use electric fence and drones to chase roaming elephants also fail.