Abstract:
This report is a gist of activities carried out during the 8 weeks’ community outreach attachment at Oasis Agribusiness (U) Limited which is an agribusiness dealing in input trade, gram purchase, agricultural insurance brokerage, financial linkages, and business consultancy using ICT and the Village agent model to go about its business.
The training was done to enrich students with Extension experiences, exploring careers, and gain occupational competencies useful in the fields of agriculture. It was started to increase output and profitability of agriculture while Increasing food security, equality and natural resources sustainability and with the vision to be one of the largest Agricultural Inputs supplier, Grains Market providers & ICT solution companies in the northern Uganda region. As regards the training, we offered tillage service linkages; we linked farmers to profiled tillage services providers as we target commercial and farmers, farmer organizations, agro Input dealers and Grain SMEs. Field officer were rotated among the groups using the rotation plan developed to encompass the programs of Oasis which included agricultural input trade, Grain trade, ICT services Agricultural insurance, Tillage service linkage and business consultancy. The activities carried at the organization Include; orientation on different topics to be covered at Oasis Agribusiness (U) Limited, training registered farmers of the company how to produce simsim and its marketing, training farmers on all the agronomic practices of soy bean and the post-harvest handling of both simsim and soy bean. Other activities include showing farmers the varieties of soy bean and simsim and training them on the agronomic practices of rice, its postharvest handling and marketing During the training, I gained practical skills and: knowledge on the relative activities mentioned above as well as good interpersonal skills of mobilization, presentations and leadership at the organization. I know that the details I learnt through my experiences in Oasis Agribusiness (U) Limited will be very valuable in my immediate future when choosing a career path However, few challenges were faced like; long distant trek unfavorable weather conditions among others. All in all, it was a wonderful experience where I got the insight and motivation to pursue a career in agriculture related disciplines, with the help of the scientists and support staff I believe that the internship was a success and I strongly recommend this great institution for community outreach.
