About the Agriculture Cluster Development Project

Introduction

The Agricultural Cluster Development Project (ACDP) is a six-year development project implemented by the Ministry of Agriculture Animal Industry and Fisheries and funded by the World Bank. It is implemented in 12 geographical clusters covering 55 districts. The project targets the development of five commodities of Maize, Rice, Beans, Cassava, and coffee. The objective of the project is “To raise on-farm productivity, production, and marketable volumes of selected agricultural commodities in specified geographical clusters”

Project components

The project has four key components

Component 1: Support to the intensification of on-farm production

Component 2: Value addition and Market Access

Component 3: Policy, Regulatory and Institutional support

Component 4: Coordination and Management, and ICT Platform

Project beneficiaries 

The project target to reach 450,000 farmers, especially smallholders, and other value chain actors at the local, district and the national level. These include

§ 300 Area-based Commodity Cooperative Enterprises

§ 3,000 Rural Producer Organizations

§ 30,000 farmer groups

The Rural producer organizations represent 450,000 farming households, of which

§ 180,000 are producers of maize (50 percent of these also produce beans),

§ 95,000 are producers of beans,

§ 40,000 are producers of rain-fed upland and rain-fed lowland rice,

§ 110,000 are producers of Robusta and Arabica coffee, and

§ 25,000 are producers of cassava

Subsidy Program

One of the core mandates of the project is the e-subsidy program. This is where farmers contribute towards the purchase of key inputs needed to intensify production of one of the prioritized commodities, on one acre of their farms and improve post-harvest handling through investing in farm-level storage. The instrument for providing a time-bound, partial, and diminishing matching grant for the purchase of key farm inputs is the e-Voucher.  Eligible farm households receive an e-Voucher that covers part of the expense involved in the purchase of a group of inputs (fertilizer, seed, on-farm storage, access to technical and market information)

Each farm household chooses the specific combination of inputs purchased through the e-Voucher system from the menu of eligible inputs through ICT tools including mobile phones).

The private sector plays the role of ensuring that inputs reach the farmers bringing in a key element of production, quality inputs and establishing input stores in the villages

The matching grant

The smart subsidy is time-bound and declines through three cropping cycles. In season one government grants 67% subsidy, in season two 50%, and in season three 37%. After cycle 3, the farmer is expected to have graduated both financially and in knowledge to effectively afford the full cost of the inputs and therefore require no subsidy. Access to the inputs is through a 7- step-voucher process as illustrated below;

The E-Voucher flow-chart

Some of the key project achievements

1)      Total registration numbers stand at 118,444 farmers registered in 24 pilot cluster districts representing 90% of the targeted number of project beneficiaries.

2)      Total number of farmers enrolled in the e-voucher system increased from 13,859 farmers (May 2019) to 46,404 farmers (27,384 males and 19,020 females) representing 34% of the target beneficiaries

3)      20,615 farmers have received inputs (40% female), this is an increment (123%) from the 9,240 farmers that received inputs in the last season (Season A 2019) in the 18 pilot cluster districts

4)      572 chokepoints on 376 roads along 2,440 km have identified and prioritized  for rehabilitation in the 17 Roll-Out districts,

5)      39 Agro-input dealers have been accredited to provide services to farmers under the project.

6)      Agribusiness matchmaking expo to facilitate contractual partnerships between the selected 123 agribusiness producer organizations and suppliers of post-harvest management and agro processing equipment and service was held at Namboole on 18^th November 2019. The first set of FOs are expected to receive grants in December 2019.

7)      Systems failure with the e-voucher management system have been resolved, The use of mobile money for making payments has been added to the e-Voucher system to mitigate the challenges of the banking system.

8)      So far 89,437 farmers from 2,100 villages in the 5 pilot districts have been registered using the farmers ’registers.  Starting in 2020, this data will be captured at the district level by all Parish Chiefs with support from Extension Workers and LC1 Chairpersons.