Original Story Published by: Michael Ssali, www.allafrica.com
Photo Source: Dennis Onsongo/Nation Media Group
The Ministry of Agriculture Animal Industry and Fisheries is calling upon farmers to invest in avocado production.
There is an on-going national campaign for increased avocado growing launched last year in Mayuge District by the Minister of Agriculture, Vincent Ssempijja.
He laid more emphasis on the Hass avocado variety because of its bigger export market but generally avocados are good fruits for all of us to eat due to their high nutritive value.
They are now viewed as the new crop whose production could alleviate poverty and malnutrition.
Dr Barbra Mugwanya Zawedde the director of research at Mukono ZARDI, told journalists last week that the Hass avocado has become a highly demanded fruit on the international market and that Mukono Zardi has been charged with production of the fruit's seedlings for farmers to plant. Mr Owen Sungura the avocado project research officer at Mukono ZARDI revealed that their target is to produce 600,000 grafted seedlings every year.
He further revealed that interested farmers from across the country will purchase each seedling at Shs5,000 which is a subsidized price and that the farmers growing the fruits will be monitored and assisted by National Agricultural Research Organisation (Naro) free of charge to come up with good results.
"We want to emphasize good agronomic practices and to ensure that the farmers meet the expected international hygienic fruit production standards. Our other goal is to link them to avocado exporters and, where possible, get them into contract farming. We are not by the way putting all our eggs into one basket. We are still promoting farming of other avocado varieties and researching on them as well so that if in future we discover some with high oil content or better taste we can take advantage of them as well. We want to have the biggest number of avocado varieties in East Africa," Dr Zawedde says.
According to Naro eating avocado comes with a lot of health and nutritional benefits which is why they are on demand worldwide. Avocados are rich in heart-healthy oil which can lower cholesterol levels and reduce the risk of heart diseases. Avocados are rich in potassium which is essential for muscle activity regulation. They are rich in dietary fibres which lower the risk of developing stroke, hypertension, diabetes and obesity.
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