The government has urged farmers in Uganda to invest in value addition, which is highly highlighted among the objectives of the Parish Development Model that is aimed to pull 39 per cent of Ugandan households out of the subsistence to the money economy.

Members of the Ministry of Finance pointed out the big challenge in the farming sector with the lack of quality markets for agricultural products and yet funds are facilitated every year.

The call has been made at the closure of the 7th high-level economic growth forum in Kampala.

Today the Ministry of Finance, Planning & Economic Development, in partnership with the IGC, has ended a high-level conference on Uganda’s economy under the theme “Accelerated and inclusive growth for sustainable development”.

The conference provided an opportunity to discuss key growth challenges, learn from policy experiences in other countries, and identify courses of policy action to drive accelerated and inclusive growth in Uganda.

The value addition in the agricultural sector is huge economic empowerment in agricultural production, which the farmers in have not yet invested in.

Despite huge production in the region, the poverty in the households has remained high because of a lack of investment in value addition, which has a high monetary value.

The parish development model is meant to commercialize the economy, invest in business, and support the agriculture sector.

The PDM has an initial investment budget of almost 1.15 trillion for 10,500 parishes mainly for production, processing, storage and marketing. The model dictates that parishes build infrastructure and systems that support the production and selling of Uganda's agricultural products.

The government has facilitated the enterprises and supported farmers but the products produced by some farmers are still of poor quality.

John Musinguzi Rujoki commissioner general at Uganda Revenue Authority highlighted the taxation policy when it comes to the farmers.

The government of Uganda is aiming to explore the revenue for the government and also empower youths to adopt commercial farming.

There will not be a shortage of markets when products have standards and once they are produced in large volume, investing in value addition and with standards, the market will be available.