By Chris Mugasha
Leaders of Cooperative Societies have been challenged to invest in training their members/people instead of only concentrating on making profits to declare at the end of the year.
Robert Asiimwe, a senior Institutional development officer from Uganda Cooperative Alliance (UCA) said one of the core objectives of cooperatives is to invest in training their members so that they can have money in their pockets.
Asiimwe said in countries like Kenya, the model of cooperatives has worked successfully because they (cooperatives) have invested in training the human resource and the general membership unlike in Uganda where trainings are looked at as costs on a cooperative/institution.
Asiimwe was on Monday training leaders of Tooke Cooperatives at the Presidential Initiative on Banana Industrial Development (PIBID) banana factory in Nyaruzinga, Bushenyi district. The training which also doubled as annual Tooke Cooperative leaders and individual supplier-stakeholders conference was organized by PIBID.
“Don’t only look at the surplus that you declare at the end of the year. You can only be stronger when you have members/people who are trained,” Asiimwe said. He argued that one of the roles of cooperatives is to empower members/farmers to have money in their pockets.
Performance of Tooke Cooperatives
For the year 2023/2024, out of the 24 Tooke Cooperatives which PIBID has spearheaded their formation, Kazo Banana Cooperative Society Ltd emerged the best after supplying the factory with 132 tones of green bananas up from 99tones which it supplied in 2022/2023. It was followed by Bumbeire Banana Farmers Cooperative that delivered 62 tones.
Prof. Rev. FlorenceMuranga the Director General for PIBID challenged the farmers to double their efforts and increase production to sustain the supply of bananas to the factory if the factory is to be sustained. Muranga said government has already approved PIBID’s plan of setting up a storage facility which will help to store farmers’ matooke especially during the dry season when there is high-pick/flooding of matooke.
Presenting their challenges, Farmers also complained that vagaries like hailstorms, drought, and diseases like banana bacterial wilt have continued to hinder the agriculture sector.
Muranga said they have already connected some Tooke cooperatives to insurance companies as a measure to mitigate the weather vagaries. End
