Government has asked investors to stop branding the agricultural sector as a risky area to invest if the country is to address the key destabilizing challenge of agricultural risks.

The call was made by the Minister of State for Animal Industry, Bright Rwamirama while officiating at a workshop on agricultural risk management at the Imperial Royale hotel in Kampala.

He said that many investors have been dodging to invest in the sector which employs the largest population of Ugandans claiming that the agricultural sector is risky thus cannot easily give back returns.

He admitted that sometimes there may be production risks which may be taken for granted until calamity strikes but planning beforehand can improve the situation.

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Maputo — The New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, an initiative of the G8 group of the most industrialised countries in the world, plans to invest 380 million US dollars in agriculture in Mozambique and lift three million people out of poverty by 2015.

According to the United States Ambassador to Mozambique, Douglas Griffiths, “development partners are to contribute 380 million dollars and the private sector will provide another 500 million dollars”.

The Ambassador was speaking on 11 April at the end of a two day meeting marking the alliance’s formal launch in Mozambique.

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Maputo — About 12,000 farmers in Chokwe in the Limpopo Valley are in need of finance to relaunch agriculture in the southern Mozambican province of Gaza following severe flooding at the beginning of the year.

According to Radio Mozambique, 300 million meticais (10 million US dollars) is needed to pay for seeds, fertilizers, tractors, pumps, ploughs and maintenance work to the irrigation scheme.

The Chairman of the Chokwe Irrigation Scheme (Hidraulica Agricola de Chokwe – HICEP), Soares Xerinda, told Radio Mozambique that the government has already disbursed 20 million meticais.

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The North West Provincial Government is upbeat about the R4 million Danish funding that the Presidency has secured for development of Taung Agriculture College as a centre of excellence for irrigation training.

Premier Thandi Modise has expressed optimism that the donor funding will assist in the repositioning of Taung Agriculture College as a centre of excellence in irrigation technology in line with its agro-ecological zone.

The establishment of a provincial task team led by the Provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development supported by the Presidency, in collaboration with Greater Taung Local Municipality and the Department of Social Development, Women. Youth and People with Disability and the appointment of the Agriculture Research Council as an implementing agent were supported by the Provincial Executive Council (Exco) in its meeting this week.

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GOVERNMENT has signed a KR150 million (US$29.8 million) loan agreement with the World Bank to enable small-scale farmers to improve agricultural productivity and boost food security.

The long-term loan facility would be spent on agricultural productivity programmes for the Agricultural Productivity Programme for Southern Africa (APPSA).

Finance Minister Alexander Chikwanda, who signed on behalf of the government, said the project would benefit the Zambian people through job creation, household and national food security.

“The agreement we have signed today of $29.8 million is an essential prelude to improved agriculture.

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