Editor,You cannot harvest viable produce without the basic inputs like irrigation. Spending on research to address the immediate needs of the farmers, is crucial but this should bring an additional revenue and welfare to households.

Access to market, infrastructure, security of land tenure are equally important.Ramesh Rajcumar------------------------------------------Editor,With improved healthcare and nutrition, we expect population explosion in most African countries in the next decade. This will ultimately increase the demand for food.

This is also coupled with massive rural urban migration will further increase need for more food production. Development of Agricultural commodity chains in East African is still a major challenge because of many factors, one of which is the weak and unsustainable farmers’ cooperative groups.  James Munanura, Kampala