By Frank Kamuntu
Cabral Technology is a company which was formed in 2017 by a Kyambongo graduate, Uhuru Serubiri with an aim of setting up an African publishers’ house which he thought needed funding. He thus decided to inject skills gained from university into agriculture to act as a source of income to fulfil the dream of the publishers’ house.
Serubiri and team under their company Cabral Tech on Friday August 2019 launched their first ever one stop agricultural call center in Uganda, with an aim of modernising Agriculture,creating effective communication both in rural and urban areas to find some of the solutions that have been bothering not only Ugandans,but the Gov’t as well.
“The question has been,how do we Integrate this sector to match with others on the new technological advancements that other sectors are enjoying and Promote agriculture through internet and Mobile technology? Now my Young brother Uhuru (Cabral Tech’s CEO) has answered me,” state Minister for Agriculture Vincent Bamulangaki Ssempija said in his opening remarks.
Serubiri also supported Gov’t’s take on registering coffee farmers and said the exercise should apply to all Agricultural sectors, saying it has been their long-time prayer, since the exercise would broaden Uganda’s import agricultural sectors, make it easy to monitor agriculture production, help in sensitizing registered farmers on how to fight against pests and diseases, among others.
The function was also honoured by commissioner extension services in the ministry of agriculture, Dr. Patience Rwamigisa, Chris Lukolyo of United Nations Capital Development Fund, Gloria Katuku the senior systems analyst of ministry of ICT, among others.
Dr. Rwamigisa, in his opening remarks wondered what happened to Uganda’s Agricultural sector. “What happened to Uganda which was a net exporter of food, yet today it is a net importer of food,” he asked.
According to Rwamigisa, 80% of Uganda’s population depend on agriculture,but 60% of the 80% are on subsistence farming, 5% on commercial and 1.5% are emerging due to factors affecting agriculture. This he said is a dangerous trend and must be fought at all levels.
Rwamigisa argued that farmers have to engage in use of technology to change the country’s agriculture statistics, because Uganda has a transforming economy but not a growing economy as the world bank report 2018 showed it clearly, that Uganda’s total factor production has been declining in the last 18 years.
Minister Sempijja concluded the event by requesting Cabral Tech. to rally behind and support him in informing and educating farmers about the importance of the Coffee Farmers’ bill, since many are still confused about it.
Recently a very important person was castigating us for bringing this bill but at the same time they’re talking of organising farmers,so my question is,how do you Organize them without first registering them?” Ssempija wondered.
