The price of matooke has dropped to the lowest.
The price of matooke has dropped to the lowest due to C-19 lockdown. By yesterday evening a bunch of Matooke was seen at 1000/-, a record lowest price ever in the history of Matooke. Some farmers were even seen distributing food free of charge to avoid matooke from getting rotten. This is due to the surplus production whereas consumers were limited due to the boarder closure.
Many Ugandans traders have been supplying foodstuff like Matooke, Eggs, Pineapple, WaterMelon etc to Southern Sudan, Rwanda and part of Kenya. When the lockdown began, even when President Museveni said trucks shall be allowed to continue bringing in and taking goods, the strict meaures put in place made it difficulty for traders dealing in perishable goods to continue in smooth business. We saw maize beginning to germinate on trucks at the boarder entry. While other foodcrops can wait in the garden until the situation normalises, matooke cannot wait, once it is ready, it must be harvested lest it gets rotten in the plantation. That is why you see an influx of matooke on the market today.
This is not a good signal to the economy and to the affected farmers. Many could jump out of business which may subsquently lead to famine in the future.
Uganda is an agricultural economy, therefore these people should be considered using the IMF post exonomy recovery fund to enable them stay afloat.
Tanzania was yesterday classified in the middle economy class by the world bank basing on Agriculture. We can aswell make it if we support farming.
