Irrigation uptake is still low in Uganda/MAAIF photo
Members of Parliament on the Budget Committee have described the 25% co-funding requirement for the Micro Scale Irrigation Program codenamed UGIFT as unaffordable by many farmers.
In their report on the national Budget Framework Paper for the FY 2025/26, the Budget Committee notes the prevalence of unstable weather patterns, which is detrimental to the stability of farming seasons in the country.
Uganda is increasingly facing a major challenge of prolonged droughts due to climatic change and variability and it is predicted that the country will be water stressed by 2025 (UBOS, 2022).
In this regard, the Committee says the mitigating factor for continuous production to ensure food security is through irrigation.
However, the Committee notes that Government efforts towards irrigation have not been sufficient due to inadequate funding and in some cases, they have not been able to perform to the expectations.
“A case in point is the UGIFT program which requires 25% co-financing which has proven to be unaffordable to beneficiaries. In addition, the cost of this program is often inflated rendering the 25% co-financing unaffordable to farmers,” the report reads in part, adding: “Government should revise the co-financing requirement of beneficiaries under UGIFT to at most 10%, to increase the uptake of the micro-scale irrigation systems among farmers.”
The Micro-scale Irrigation Program supports farmers to purchase and use individual irrigation equipment. The Program supports farmers in purchasing the irrigation equipment through a matching grant scheme, in which the cost of the equipment is co-financed by the farmer and the government.
According to the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries (MAAIF), under the Uganda Intergovernmental Fiscal Transfers (UgIFT) Program, a farmer is expected to pay 25% while the Government contributes 75% towards purchasing the irrigation system, but with a maximum contribution of 7.2 million Shillings per acre.
The Program caps the support to 2.5 acres (1 hectare), thus it is expected to benefit mainly smallholder farmers interested to transition from mainly subsistence to more commercial agriculture.
The UGIFT Project is a ‘ WAKENER’. It is intended to cause the peasantry realize that we shall not depend only on seasons. Because Rain some times is not enough. Some times late planters lose out completely. Yet with irrigation that is an irrelevant fact.
Once the peasantry has waken up,
he latent potential in them will force astronomical outputs. So the imagination that 25% co-funding is high is just wrong.
For now it is waking up the masses. As masses wake up go on increasing co-funding. A time will come when co-funding will be zero.
The hope that Sh 800 billon irrigation will fail is misplaced .
Hello.
How can some access this funding?