African farmers cash in on rice production

AT THE Tilda rice processing plant in rural Uganda near the Kenyan border, Indian investors are providing a livelihood and market for more than 1 000 farmers who sell their crops for cash to the mill.

The plant produces about 20 000 tonnes of rice a year, some 20 per cent of Uganda’s output, grown on land owned by the local farmers. It is mainly for domestic consumption but some is exported to neighbouring states. By expanding irrigation from the nearby freshwater lake, Tilda hopes to quadruple production over the next few years.World Bank President Robert Zoellick visited the operation on Thursday to see how investments like Tilda’s, supported by loans from the World Bank, can help the country move toward commercial farming and greater food security. ‘This is evidence of Uganda’s great potential to become a food basket for the region,’ Zoellick told a small gathering of Tilda employees. ‘There is a great interest in the world about expanding agricultural production,’ he added. Uganda boasts 47 per cent of all the arable land in East Africa, giving it huge agricultural promise. But like much of the continent, it has been hamstrung by a lack of investment and financing to take subsistence farming to a larger scale. A group of Saudi-based investors announced earlier this month a seven-year plan to develop and plant 700 000 hectares to produce 7 million tonnes of rice in countries like Uganda.Industrialised nations last month pledged US$20 billion to invest in agriculture in developing countries, but still need to work out the details of how it will be spent. The World Bank could be put in charge of managing the money for donors. Still, there are fears that the growing land grab will force poor rural Africans off land they have farmed for generations. The World Bank and other international institutions are drawing up guidelines to ensure such abuses do not happen.- Nampa-Reuters

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