Uganda: 500 Kanungu Farmers Stuck With Tobacco

Source from:  New Vision 05/09/2012

About 500 farmers in Kanungu district who were early last year contracted by Continental Tobacco Ltd to grow tobacco are stuck with the crop after the company has to date not purchased it. One of the farmers Godfrey Byarugaba who hails from Kibimbiri parish in Kihiihi sub county last week said he had invested sh1.7m hoping to reap double but that has not happened. Early this year Parliament summoned directors of Continental Tobacco and tasked them over failure to pay its farmers in different parts of the country. The directors at the time pleaded for one month for mobilizing funds to pay the farmers, but that is yet to happen. According to farmers in the three sub counties of Nyamirama, Kihiihi and Nyakinoni in Kanungu district they are now stuck with about 80 tonness of tobacco valued at sh2.5b. Previously, most of these farmers were affiliated to BATU but they reportedly changed allegiance to Continental Tobacco after being promised a better offer. "We are stuck with the crop and we now fear that it may not be bought since most of it has gone bad," Byarugaba said. Byarugaba who is also a counselor for Kihiihi Sub County said that the farmers have written several letters to Continental and the district commercial officer to rescue them but in vain. "Some of our members have failed to take their children to school because they don't have the money to since they hoped to raise it from the tobacco sales," He added. However the Kanungu district Commercial officer Nazaroius Kagirehe said that he had contacted Continental Tobacco directors over the matter and had pledged in writing to start buying the crop by March 2012 but since then they have never communicated. "When we realized that the tobacco season was coming to an end in February this year we physically went to Continental Head offices in Kampala to find out what was happening and they promised to start buying the crop after clearing farmers in Bunyoro region who had mass harvests but since them we have not heard from them," Kagirehe explained. When contacted a Continental Tobacco field extension officer in Kanungu who refused to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter and job security said that he was also worried that the farmers may after all never get paid since the company directors seem not bothered at all. Enditem