Up to 85% of Uganda’s farmers are smallholder farmers. This has been the main motivation for PostBank in teaching the country’s farming community about how to access credit to help jumpstart their businesses, and it will be doing so through a number of forums hosted in the Soroti District, among others.
Last year, PostBank held agricultural forums in the districts of Mubende, Lira, Anaka, Bweyale, Hoima, Masindi, and Gulu, where over 850 smallholder farmers learned how to maximise their business’ profits.
PostBank plans to hold forums in the districts of Soroti, Kapchorwa, and Kween, as well as Mbale and its bordering districts of Namisindwa, Sironko, Bulambuli, and Manafwa this year.
The bank will run through the districts of Kagadi, Fort Portal, Kamwenge, and Kasese in the west, and over 400 small and medium-scale farmers will be reached by the bank.
Through the forums, they will be equipped with money management skills, loan management skills, climate wise agriculture knowledge, and savings among other things to help them transition from subsistence farming to commercial agriculture.
On Thursday, 21 April 2022, the bank hosted an instructional talk in the area of Kagadi, Uganda.
“Kagadi is a hilly area with farmers participating in livestock, poultry, fish farming, piggery, and crop production. The district has potential in farming, but is significantly challenged by small land holding, which limits their production capacity,” the bank shared via it’s official Twitter account.
“The farmers in the area noted that in addition to small land holding, they also face other challenges including price fluctuations, limited financial knowledge, and lack of access to machinery among others.”
The bank is known for offering many agriculture-specific loans and credit facilities to farmers, and has also introduced a small business recovery loan option following the deviation caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
PostBank is a public company limited by shares that was established under the Public Enterprises Reform and Divestiture Statute of 1983 and the Uganda Communications Act of 1997. It was founded in 1998 under the Companies Act, and the Ugandan government owns 100% of the company, according to its official website.
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