The Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries says it’s in the final stages of rolling out an electronic traceability system to help keep an eye on the entire agrochemical life cycle.
When Frank Tumwebaze was appointed to head the ministry, he said it was crucial to curb to weed out fake agrochemicals on the Ugandan market.
According to Paul Mwambu, the ministry’s commissioner in charge of Crop Inspection and Certification, the system is being developed with help from the National Information Technology Authority – Uganda (NITA-U).
Mwambu was walking the minister and select members of the Agrochemicals Board (ACB) through the developments in his department. ACB is responsible for overseeing all matters relating to agricultural chemicals.
The commissioner revealed that they had already reduced the level of low-quality agrochemicals from about 30 tons in 2018 to just five tons in 2020.
The board is also profiling all the dealers in the country in order to create a national database for easy monitoring and enforcement.
“To date, 72 districts have submitted full data on the various dealers within their localities,” Mwambu said, according to a statement from the ministry.
“To ensure safe use of agrochemicals chemicals, the board has trained close to 1,500 dealers in safe and effective handling of agrochemicals. The aim is to improve their capacity in advising farmers on the proper use of inputs.”
Since 2018, more than 500 dealers and 513 premises have been certified and licensed to sell agrochemicals. According to Mwambu, the target is at least to have one fully registered agro-input dealer per sub-county.
