The government is set to recruit additional extension workers to assist farmers on best practices to improve the quality and standards of agricultural produce.
Speaking at annual stake holders meeting organized by Sasakawa Africa, an orgnisation advocating for smart agriculture and agriculture best practices, Beatrice Namaloba, principal agricultural extension coordinator at Ministry of agriculture noted that substandard agriculture produces has remained a major challenge for agriculture sector especially when marketing the products on international market. She says this year , Ministry of Agriculture's emphasis will be on increasing extension workers to help on addressing the matter.
According to Namaloba the ratio of extension workers to Farmers in Uganda currently standards at 1:1800 and as government want to bring it down at least to 1:500.
She added that on top of recruiting additional extension workers, the ministry is also looking at introducing other models such as e-extension where farmers will need to visit internet and understand the solution to problems that are likely to affects their gardens.
She says introduction of Village extension assistant will be also looked up on as another possible model.