the case of iganga district - Economic Policy Research Centre

A detailed review of the enterprises prior regarded as non‐priority but implemented showsthat the majority of these enterprises are longer‐term enterprises such as trees or fruits(pines, mangoes, oranges and pineapples), or non‐crop enterprises such as dairy cattle,piggery and poultry (layers). Dictating or providing farmers with inputs for enterprises theydo not desire has greatly affected their ownership of the programme and ultimatelyproductivity. Farmers seem not to take NAADS supported activities as primary enterprises oftheir own as illustrated below. First, some farmers implement NAADS activities on anexperimental basis than as an integrated part of their farming business. Furthermore, it wasrevealed that farmers are reluctant to take good care of the technologies (enterprises)provided to them by NAADS as they are not clear about ownership of outputs. For example,in the case of poultry enterprises, some farmers divert the feeds to give to their localchicken, thereby starving/underfeeding chicken provided by NAADS. In the case of crops,CBF’s monitoring reports show that most farmers give priority in terms of planting, weedingand harvesting to their crops before tending crops whose inputs were provided by NAADS.Second, the adoption and diffusion rate of the NAADS supported enterprises by eitherbenefiting farmers or non‐NAADS farmers is very poor. When NAADS support to farmers, forexample, for short term enterprises such as poultry cease, it is rare to find farmerscontinuing with the enterprise on their own initiative. Likewise, it is rare to find farmers inthe neighbourhood taking on a similar activity. The only exceptional are those enterprisesthat happen to be traditional crop such as maize that all farmers cultivate. This suggests thatthe enterprises forced on to farmers are either not relevant to the farmers’ socioeconomicneeds or not economically profitable to attract new or additional investment by farmers.Third, because of the low capacity (financial or technical) of some farmers in management ofnew enterprises such as exotic poultry, piggery and Friesian cows, there is negligenceleading to high mortality of poultry and animals ‐as documented in monitoring reports. Forexample, cases are documented where many farmers underfeed poultry and animals –afterthe feeds provided by NAADS are over. Also there are many cases where some farmers selloffsome poultry or animals to buy feeds or sell all the poultry or animals and use money forsocial investments such as tuition for secondary and tertiary education of their children.Fourth, for some unclear reasons, most farmers including Demo farmers who at the lowestrank of the farmer development hierarchy and hence receive the least funding are givenmore enterprises than they can optimally manage within the same financial year. Table 9gives a sample of the most common combinations of enterprises that farmers implement inone financial year. It is not uncommon to find a NAADS Demo farmer receiving inputs oroperating enterprises equivalent in value to those of a Model farmer.15