You’ve Caused Immense Losses To Our Farmers & Ruined Our International Market- Minister Tumwebaze Vows To Crush Fake Agricultural Input Traders, Distributors

0

By Uganda Online Media

President Yoweri Museveni has appointed Maj Tom Magambo who has been in the Internal Security Organisations(ISO) as the new police Criminal Investigations Director.

“President Museveni has promoted Private Tom Magambo to the rank of Major and appointed him Director Criminal Investigations of the Uganda Police Force,” the acting UPDF spokesperson, Lt Col Ronald Kakurungu said in a statement.

Kampala: In a bid to ensure enhanced quality and quantity in Uganda’s agricultural produce, minister for Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries, Frank Tumwebaze has vowed to take immediate action against fake agricultural input traders.

Tumwebaze noted that the Uganda national drugs authority (NDA) is yet to publish a list of registered and authorized agricultural input traders and distributors which will help the ministry deal with those dealing in fake inputs and take action against them.

Tumwebaze further revealed that substandard inputs, which include counterfeit drugs, seeds, chemicals, and pesticides among others have flooded Uganda’s market, and these are sold at cheap prices, as compared to the genuine ones thus leading to immense losses to farmers and also affecting Uganda’s international market.

Tumwebaze has thus assured farmers that his ministry will fight tooth and nail to effectively solve this problem.

Read Minister Tumwebaze’s full statement

”To all farmers in the country, ladies and gentlemen, I greet you and salute you. I am addressing you on this subject of fake inputs, fake agrochemicals, fake acaricides. The problem mainly is in the veterinary sector, but also to some extent, in the agricultural sector.

I want to let you know, that the ministry of Agriculture has noted with concern the growing number of reports we get, that all these drugs most of them do not have the required levels of efficacy.


Like I had announced some months back when I took over the ministry of Agriculture, we put up a committee, a technical committee, to study the issues, to study the supply chain, factors responsible for increasing tick resistance, to study why farmers do not get value from the acaricides or other inputs they buy.

Just to let you know that we have not rested, this struggle continues. We are still waiting for the committee’s reports to tell us, such that we are able to formulate policy and regulatory reforms, informed by evidence of experts.


But while that one is still ongoing, I want to let you know that MAAIFnow working with NDA is going to intensify through the district authorities, to publicize registered veterinary drug and authorized drug sellers and distributors, such you the farmer, you take personal responsibility before buying the drugs.

You ask yourself that this outlet that I am going to buy in at my trading center, in Gulu, in Kamwenge, in Mbarara, Soroti, is it on the NDA-MAAIF list? Because if we don’t intensify that, fake products will continue to litter the market, and they will be offered at attractingly low prices to lure all of you into that Of course the genuine ones will be priced higher, so a farmer ordinarily will go with what is priced cheap, or lower and that one in most cases will be the fake ones.

So, bear with us, join us, anything you buy ask yourselves, is this on the NDA list? So in the coming days, MAAIF and NDA will issue and publicize through the entire mass media & social media, the registered pharmacies, registered drug stores for veterinary or non-veterinary, we will start with veterinary, per district, such that you know if it’s my district of kamwenge, we should know the drug pharmacies, veterinary drug pharmacies licensed.

Then if you buy a drug from there, and is not working on your animals, then you are able to trace, you are able to report, and we hold accountable that store. That store will also be responsible for where they source their drugs.


If they are the type who go and buy anything from the container village, yet they are licensed, they risk losing their license and suffering the associated legal penalties. So now, I am sending you this legal message share it, in as many networks of farmers you can, to let you know we are not sitting, to let you know we know the problem, we are part of the farming community, and together we shall address it”.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Send this to a friend