For the past eight years, I have been on a
learning journey – for the large part dedicated to farming and agricultural
systems in Uganda. Of course, I was born and raised in a farmer’ household. I therefore
tend to think that this naturalized me into farmers’ daily realities. Recently,
I have been thinking about Uganda’s demographic profile in relation to food
security and employment opportunities in the country side. Uganda has the youngest
population in the world presenting us challenges and opportunities in an equal
measure.
Driven by very high fertility rate of nearly 7
children per woman, Uganda’s population is indeed on a surge. The annual
population growth is at 3.2%. For example, in 1980 Uganda had 12.7 million
people, in 2005, it pulled to 28.7 million- and in constant fertility scenario,
by 2025, and Uganda will have 58.1 million inhabitants. By 2050, it will have
152.2 million people (See, Beatrice and Madsen, 2010). If as a country we don’t
strategize early to turn the foregoing into an opportunity that comes with high
quality and skilled population that can create wealth by driving innovations
and markets, such high rate of population growth has potential to create strains
on Uganda’s natural resources, including arable land, which in turn drives up
poverty rate and threatens future gains in agriculture production and food
security. Remember, Uganda has an area of 236,040 square kilometers (146,675
square miles) and a total land boundary of 2,698 kilometers (1,676 miles). This
land size is a constant. How will this constant and not wholly arable land feed
152 million Ugandans in 2050? For starters, I wish to propose two
interventions;
1.
Support the
entry of Uganda Peoples Defense Forces (UPDF) into grand and large scale
production: With the success of Wazalendo SACCO in the bag, UPDF
has pedigree to partake mass production (and value addition) and contribute
massively to food security in Uganda. Indeed from Byzantine times, the role
of the armies in food production is a historic duty (constitutes human
security): This is so because; food security is possibly the first line of
comprehensive peace and security of any country. Countries like Russia don’t
have food Siros, but rather keep food and cereal vaults that can feed the
population for more than 10 years in an event of crisis. With successful entry
of UPDF, we will no longer need World Food Program and other “armies of
salvation” to feed Ugandans. The other important advantage is the infusion of
the historical role of the Army in high end innovations. All over the World,
armies have led agile innovations through their corporate military research
strategies; from the most sophisticated planes, software and hardware
engineering, geo engineering etc. For instance, Weather modification in the US
was seen as a way to increase crop yields (and thus profits), and was kicked
off by Project Cirrus, a "cooperative research investigation in cloud
physics sponsored by the Signal Corps and the Office of Naval Research, in
consultation with General Electric Company" (Stark, 1957: 702). By focusing on production, the UPDF cooperate
with agencies like Uganda Industrial Research Institute, National Agriculture
Research Organization etc to invest in innovations that can stimulate new
farming knowledge, value addition and thus strengthen the position of Uganda agro-competitiveness
in the region. The private sector,
Uganda National Farmers Federation, The Parliament of Uganda and Executive
should support the UPDF.
2.
Move fast to harness Information
Technology Dividend to promote agriculture. Uganda liberalized
telecommunication sector thereby opening the market to both local and foreign
investors. This bold step, coupled with the advent of mobile telephony, greatly
improved telecommunications in the country. Internet usage is also growing
rapidly (usage now at 3,2000,000 with a population of 33,000,000), 10,400,000
connected on mo mobile phones and 228 FM stations. These are huge platforms for
horizontal and vertical information flow necessary to boost production and
market efficiency. I have come across facebook pages of young urban farmers
around Kampala using facebook platform to market eggs and vegetables. This is
awesome. State agencies and private sector should accentuate this opportunity-
the future of the sector lies in innovations of the young population. The
digital divide in rural areas should be narrowed. Where rural electrification
agency has succeeded, ICT centers should be established to provide real time
information to farming communities and other chain actors. The private sector
can take a leading role on this.
I will return next time with more suggestions.
Morrison Rwakakamba
Chief
Executive Officer
Agency
for Transformation
Re-imagining agricultural and
environmental policy
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