Lowila CD Oketayot
Lowilo CD Oketayot (born 24 December 1969) is a Ugandan professional agriculturist, politician, and legislator.
Quotes
[edit]- I am happy to say that our focus on revamping extension services has paid off.
- Despite their critical role in advising farmers on how to confront the many challenges they face such as low productivity, poor quality inputs, pests and diseases, extension workers had remained an unfunded priority for many years.
- So I am grateful that we managed to get government to recruit extension workers. We were also successful when it came to ensuring their facilitation. Making sure they have transport, all the equipment to support farmers had been left under unfunded priorities. In the just concluded budget, we managed to secure all the money that was needed for facilitating extension workers was provided. I even asked the director of Extension services to tell me all the money they need and we ensured it is provided 100%.
- In fact in the current budget, we managed to ensure that those that have been recruited are equipped with all the tools such as soil testing kits, GPS to locate farmers, motorcycles and fuel for motorcycles.
- That is why we really had to put our feet down and ensure that all extension workers are in place. According to the guidelines of OWC, she says, the job of soldiers stops at delivering inputs and not to give technical advice on how the crops or animals should be taken care of
- Our assessment found that as a country we lose a lot of money through botched procurement exercises
- We found that a lot of inputs are procured and dumped at the sub-counties, especially Mango seedlings, cassava cuttings.
- If the extension workers were in place, they would be able to identify and assess according to their visits what are the needs of the farmers in a particular area. What can empower them in order to produce for the market
- We found out that in some districts some of the inputs were being imposed on them. The district leaders would wake up and find trucks of cassava, citrus seedlings packed at district headquaters. We found this in Nakapiripirit, in Moroto. But we are also happy that some of the district leaders were able to reject some of these inputs because they had not requested for them.
- But in other areas, leaders signed for them but had no idea where to distribute them so they dried at the district headquarters.
- In our recommendations, we came out very strongly and said that inputs that are taken to any sub-countylevel must be according to the priority of those districts
- The argument by OWC people was that we now need more mangoes to supply the new fruit processing plant in Soroti. Unfortunately the people were not sensitized enough about some of these things
- I am also grateful that in this budget,
about UGX10 billion has been provided to facilitate inspection and certification.”
- Perhaps as a way to send a warning signal to all those involved in criminal activities, Oketayot says officers from the department recently rounded up some people who were dealing in fake inputs in Kampala and Masaka.
- But she has urged them not to stop there but go ahead and clean up the sector to restore the public’s confidence, which is a pre-requisite for investment.