President Museveni Commended for Supporting Local Oil palm Production
Fredrick Siminyu
The National Oil Palm Production Project (NOPP) Manager, Suzan Lakonyero, has highly praised President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni for spearheading the local production of oil palm in the country instead of relying on importations.
Lakonyero made the remarks while commissioning yet another Oil Palm Project in Mayuge District, after registering an overwhelming success in the Lake Victoria islands of Kalangala and Buvuma.
She said, due to president Museveni’s prudent and fore sighted leadership plus personal effort and commitment to improve on the living standards of each and every Ugandan, NOPP is already registering positive success.
“Success of this project is due to president Museveni’s dedicated and wise foresighted planning for all the citizens of this country to come out of poverty by efficiently using the locally available resources,” she said.
Lakonyero revealed that at least UShs3 billion has so far been sunk into the project to fund all the stages involved in the growing of the plant as the farmers’ contributions will be entirely on the provision of land and care for the crop as it grows.
Assuring the residents that food security will not be affected, she as well called upon the women to participate in the cultivation of palm oil and said that the project will not stop in Mayuge alone but go as far as including farmers with enough land in the districts of Bugiri and Namayingo.
“NOPP has a current target of covering 3,500 hectares in Mayuge, Bugiri and Namayingo to scale up the production of palm oil so as to cut on expenditures of $300 million spent on the importation of palm oil from Malaysia and Indonesia,” Lakonyero explained.
Regarding the availability of market for the crop and price suitability, Lakonyero assured the farmers that the Jinja-based edible oil giants of Bidco shall under the agreement signed in 2003 buy all the crop and that a pricing committee has been set up by government with representatives from all spheres to guarantee fair prices.
“Buvuma, Sango Bay and Kalangala are a clear evidence of success concerning this project in regard to market and price stability, “she added.
According to Lakonyero, Implementation of the project would have started 13 years ago under the then vegetable oil development project in Buvuma and Mayuge but, there were some delays due to land acquisition challenges and the fulfillment of National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) requirements.
The District Evironment officer, Thomas Aramu, said the National Oil Palm Production Project has promised to work hand in hand with the district authorities towards the improvement of community livelihoods.
“NOPP has promised to give us enough money to work on roads and to improve on other community demands,” he said.
The cultivation of Palm oil comes to Busoga as a new cash crop at a time when the residents are wallowing in biting poverty after depending on sugarcane and coffee for decades.
