The Civil Society Budget Advocacy Group has appealed to the government to develop programmes that enable farmers to access affordable agricultural inputs that will help their crops grow well for better yields.

farmers need more farm inputs

The group says besides 6% of the households in that survey reported that access to some of the inputs like herbicides and animal feeds worsened and so the government needs to address such shortcomings that caused the worsening of the access to such inputs.

According to the National Service Delivery Survey 2008, only 14% of households involved in agriculture reported use of at least an agricultural input while the 86% are said not to have used any input in their agricultural activities.

Though the survey reports that access to inputs improved between 2004 and 2008, the group says in its Alternative Proposals to the 2009/10 budget that the number of households involved in agriculture that use in puts is still very low and needs to be improved.

The group says that the government should sensitize the farmers on the importance of the agricultural inputs while making them cheaper affordable since according to the survey 50% of households in the survey attributed their failure to access the inputs to lack of knowledge and 16% of the households attributed it to the high cost of the inputs.

Many Ugandans largely depend on agriculture for their livelihood and income, the reason many have been calling for the government to come up with strategic and workable interventions that can make the agricultural sector more a more economically vibrant sector than it at the moment.

By Zakaria Tiberindwa, Ultimate Media