By KT Reporter
The Minister of Agriculture, Animal Husbandry and Fisheries, Frank Tumwebaze, has commissioned a National Dairy Center of Excellence in Mbarara.
The National Dairy Centre of Excellence aims to revolutionize dairy production by advancing genetics, expanding markets, building capacity, and ensuring sustainability. The Centre will champion climate-smart and inclusive dairy systems.
During the launch of the Centre at the NARO Mbarara Zonal Agricultural Research and Development institute, Frank Tumwebaze proposed a re-look at the breeding policy and strategy to include local cattle breeders.
He explained that the current policy overlooks some of the most skilled local breeders within the farming communities.
“Those farmers doing breeding, we need to profile them, license them, and then they add their work onto this center,” he said.
The breeding policy is implemented through the Animal Breeding Act of 2001, which led to the establishment of the National Animal Genetic Resources Centre and Data Bank.
The policy focuses on improving animal productivity, ensuring quality assurance of genetic materials, and managing both indigenous and modern breeding technologies.
Tumwebaze said that with a clear policy and a law to criminalize people who sell fake breeds, Uganda will have better breeds.
“We should also really even make a law to protect our farmers from fake breeds, actually, people go and buy cattle from the cattle markets, then come and claim it is a high-pedigree, and then ask for a premium price, that’s criminal,” said Tumwebaze.
“If we are here exhibiting the best of the best, it is both the government farm exhibiting what they have and also the private partners, so we must work together to ensure the breeding policy of the country is clear and we should also have a clear law, allow us license private sector breeders to complement what we are doing here, so that we improve the entire country’s profile of the breeds,” he suggested.
Dr Yona Baguma, Director General of NARO, said the Centre is a launchpad for dairy production in Uganda, as well as a hub for educating and empowering the farmers to boost efficiency, competitiveness, and sustainability in the sector.
He urged the government to establish a dedicated training hub at the Centre where farmers can master modern dairy farming techniques.
Dr Robert Muzira, the acting Director of Mbarara Zonal Agricultural Research and Development Institute, said the center will serve as a platform for research-driven solutions, capacity building, and validation support to farmers and their enterprises across Uganda.
It will focus on training and capacity building that equips farmers, youths, and extension workers with practical dairy management skills, technology transfer, and extension to ensure that developed technologies reach end-users for real and measurable impact.
Catherine Kamwine, the Mbarara City Resident Commissioner, said the region has lots of challenges, but the most affecting is making feed for livestock because the equipment is not available for farmers.
“In this region, at least we were happy that we had four tractors that were given to clusters in the whole region, but the four tractors got damaged, so we need tractors, like hay balers, the chaff cutters and other equipment that we can put our feeds for storage then we would be able to improve our productivity at the farm” she said.
Pheobe Tumwebaze, a cattle farmer and also an entrepreneur, appealed to the government to come up with a framework to involve the private sector, especially those in the value addition.
“We ask for your support for women with small-scale biogas. We have unreliable power, electricity, it is disturbing us, but we have submitted a climate smart plan, so we feel that if we get that support, it will take us to a different level and make agriculture a profitable, inclusive, and climate smart enterprise that transforms our communities,” she said.
Amos Kamugungunu, a farmer, commended the initiative and said this will boost their cattle production since 40% of the country’s milk is produced in the region.
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