MPs Impressed by developments at NARO

Members of Parliament on the Agriculture Committee are asking farmers across the country to engage in coffee farming as it has become a highly paying cash crop in Uganda.

The MPs were conducting an oversight visit of NARO institutes on Coffee (in Mukono), Crops (Namulonge) and Livestock (Nakyesasa).

NARO,  established under the National Agricultural Act, Act No. 19 of 2005, Laws of Uganda, has a mandate of overseeing, guiding and coordinating all aspects of agricultural research and undertaking, through its constituent public agricultural research institutes (PARIs), research in all aspects of agriculture including crops, horticulture, oil palm, livestock, fisheries, forestry, agro-machinery, natural resources and socio-economic issues in the National Agricultural Research System of Uganda.

Hon. Linda Auma, Chairperson of the Committee on Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries, says they are carrying on the campaign across the country and encouraging communities even in the north to take part in coffee growing.

Hon Linda also cautioned nursery operators against bad seedlings urging the coffee farmers to embrace the new fast growing coffee varieties.

Led by the director Gen NARO Dr Yona Baguma, the facility at NARO  is now rolling into commercial production and will serve the east and Central Africa as a center of excellence.

It will generate revenue for the country but the utmost goal is to eradicate ticks from Uganda’s livestock. Ticks are responsible for ECF that is responsible for most death of animals