A farm set up by Australian investors in Lujoro village in Amuru district is expecting to produce 8,000 tons of grains this season, the farmers told a group of Acholi leaders on Monday during a tour of the farm.
Omer Farming Company Limited sits on a 6,000 hectares of land and is specialised in maize growing.
The farm’s manager, Linton Brimblecombe, said during the tour that he is optimistic of getting a bumper harvest this season, something he attributes to the good soils and climate of Amuru.
Mr Brimblecombe said the grains from the farm will be sold to seed suppliers in Uganda.
Omer Farming Company Limited is mechanised with both planting and harvesting of crops done by machines.
Brimblecombe said there farm has not been affected by the erratic climate which many farmers in northern Uganda have complained about.
He asked government to improve on the road network and extend electricity supply. At the moment, the farm runs on a generator due to a lack of electricity.
The Australian farmer says they have so far sunk US$ 3.5 million (12.2 billion shillings) into the farm which they acquired slightly more than a year ago from a family it signed a 49- year lease contract with.
During a visit at the farm, Kilak County Member Of Parliament, Gilbert Olanya, said the investment will not only benefit the family which leased the land but also the communities living around the farm.
Olanya explained that women and youth from the community will be employed in the maize plantation as casual labourers and in return be paid wages.
Norbert Mao, the Democratic Party President was among the leaders who toured the farm. Mao said investments like the farm will help turn ”killing fields” during the conflict in northern Uganda into areas of production.
Mao challenged investors to use appropriate means of acquiring land for investment instead of using ‘agents.’
There is a widely held perception in Acholi that the government directly or through agents has intentions of grabbing their land.
In Amuru district, the Madhvani group of companies failed to secure a 40,000 hectares for sugar project . Locals and their leaders accused the sugar company of using State House to acquire land instead of directly negotiating with the land owners.
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In Canada, an acre of land with one cropping season rents for CD$70/per year. Uganda with two growing seasons every year and virgin land should fetch at a minimum CAD$140/per acre per year in rent.
Jami ma tye ka timme gang lik dok cwero cwiny dano. En Mao kikome myero pe bene loko ata. Mwaka pyerabic olu – jami ma kit meno myero pe ki weko twero ne bot lukingang. Mwunu mo peke kabino kenyo me wekko ni ngom odwog cen i cing rwede – Wiwun myero owil woko iiye.
Please Africans are we really independent, did we not kick out colonizers. Remember they come and the Buganda Kabaka welcome them with open arms until they colonized you. The white man has repeated this the world over. In Canada. US, latin America they come with their bible and end up enslaving the neatives worse killing all of them. ASK OUR FRIEN the Australian investor why he did not spend his money in Australia? Apart from the weather and soil being terribly poor, the land rent is very high. Ask him why the black aborigines were considered part of flora and fauna until 1978 by white criminals now turned settlers in Australia – therefore the white Australian was free to kill the blacks without fear of the law. Ask him if he has ever met an original TASMANIAN (who were black). He would have to say no because the white man exterminated them. Read up on Lugard, Cecil Rhodes and their massacre of the blackmen. What will this white man do when he acquires title on the acres he is currently seeking to lease? Will he shoot any black man who trespasses on his property. Remember Acholi like short cuts and the concept of trespass is alien. Please ask your Kenyan brothers what happened to the kikuyus in what was known as the “white Highlands”. Why the Mau mau war took place. The white man comes as a lamb but is a hyena in disguise. Do not become slaves in your own land. Do not accommodate Indian in your midst unless you have travelled to India and looked at black Indian who look like you black African. They are called “UNTOUCHABLES” and only fit for the lowest of lows jobs like disposing of the dead etc. You want these landless Indians to enslave you in your own land? This land will not run away to Ankole etc. It will not bite you. God is creating no more land. The whole world is land HUNGRY!!! Keep your land until you learn to farm it yourself. Do you eat sugar when hungry? NO. Honey, Sweet Sorghum / “Tyang Gaya” is known in Acoliland. As for Mao, I am sorry that a man with such promise sell himself so cheaply like kneeeling before Kabaka. REALY, an Acholi says An “arwot ki oda” and by the way Mr. Mao did you look left as you knelt before the Kabaka, to see the inscription at the gate of the “holies of holies” called “WANG KAC”? Who does that inscription point to, and then why do you still kneel? More later.