EASTERN PROVINCE

NYAGATARE — The district has made a commitment to buy and store a variety of agricultural produce from Kiikanya Business Cooperative in order to improve food stocks.

Anselm Rurangwa, the district vice mayor in charge of economic development revealed this during a meeting between district authorities and members of Kiikanya Cooperative at Nyagatare Nursing School main hall on Wednesday.

The cooperative is made up of business men dealing in produce with national and international outlets.
The meeting aimed at discussing the arrangement to execute the plan.

According to Rurangwa, the food stocks, whose purchase starts next week, would be stored at the district stores in Lyabega trading center.

"We want our residents to get enough food if they want it. We don’t want these people (Kiikanya members) to sell all food crops outside our district and in time of bad season we fail to get food for our people,” he said.

He noted that the stocks would later be sold back to farmers during scarcity at same or less price.

"We don’t want our people to be cheated. Cooperatives buy food crops from local farmers at low price but sell them back at high prices which some times triple the original price they bought from farmers.

So we want to tackle this problem by ensuring that our people get foodstuffs at low price from our stores in the time of food shortages,” he added.

The foodstuffs to be stocked include, maize, beans and sorghum. He explained that they will be selling back the food crops to the cooperatives for sale when they are storing new crops after the harvest. And they want to make it a routine.

The vice mayor said that they were capable of intervening in the supply of food in areas where people experience food shortages in areas hit by natural calamities in the whole country.

Ends