GAIN Uganda Country Director Damalie calls upon Busega Market Vendors to enhance partnership with farmers for quality vegetable supplies

The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) Uganda Wednesday, 23^rd July, held a market activation exercise at Buseka Market in Rubaga Division, Kampala to sensitize vegetable market vendors and parents on the benefits of consuming nutritious vegetables and how the vendors can maximize profits in the vegetable business.

The initiative, with the “Vegetables for All” tag line, is a project designed to strengthen Uganda’s vegetable supply chains while addressing the country’s lingering nutrition challenges through a market-based, agriculture-driven approach.

Sarah Nalumansi, a Vegetable Vendor, displays the various vegetable varieties in Busega market 

During the activation in Busega market, the Country Director of GAIN Uganda, Damalie Ssali, while applauding the market vendor dealing in vegetables, called upon parents, especially the mothers, to embrace serving meals with vegetables for their families.

“Vegetables for all” campaign encourages parents to feed their families on vegetables. We want mothers to embrace vegetable cooking and the men to encourage them,” she said

Damalie urged the vegetable vendor to partner with vegetable farmers to sustain the supply to the markets, applauding the partnership with government agencies such as KCCA to conduct various activities, including research in food security, among others.

The Senior Nutritionist from the Ministry of Health, Laura Atuhura Turinawe, said that while the ministry is committed to supporting consumers, she called upon people to make informed choices about food consumption to minimize non-communicable disease through changing their lifestyle to adopt the promotion and consumption of healthy foods, including vegetables and fruits.

“We can minimize bad practices affecting the digestion by balancing foods from those available and dropping certain lifestyles and start trending in nutritious feeding,” she said

Meanwhile, Mr. Julius Kasirye, the Manager of Markets from Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA), commended the work of GAIN Uganda in consolidating the issue of nutritious vegetables.

He urged the market vendors to acknowledge the importance of what they are selling to the health of the consumers.

“This is a partnership with Busega market. While GAIN Uganda has the responsibility to train about nutritious food, KCCA is responsible for the general good health and proits for market vendors in government markets. We have been working with GAIN to support market vendors to profit from vegetable trading, a collaboration that has shared what is been done in other markets,” he said

"The Fit Food -Vegetables for All" campaign, tagged "Maama Owakabi" aims to tackle a core goal of strengthening vegetable value chains from farm to market, ensuring that farmers are linked to a reliable and consistent market through an innovative “market facilitator” model to boost incomes for smallholder farmers and increase access to nutritious produce. 

Damali speaking to one of the vegetable vendors in Busega market on Wednesday