Everything is Maths.
Everything is numbers. Because math is logic. Even music is maths, for mathematics
is the basis of sound. Indeed all nature consists of harmony arising
out of numbers. Today, I will use numbers to illuminate the tragedy of
agricultural extension services in Uganda. For example, on the 02, December,
2011, Dr.Salim Nahdy, the now retired Executive Director of National
Agricultural Advisory Services talked to regional Media House- Business times.
He affirmed that Uganda has only 1600 extension workers mandated to serve
4,000, 000 million farmer households in Uganda. This is the ratio of 1: 2500
farmer households. Is this practical? Look! We have 365 days in a year. If an
extension worker was working 7 days a week, it would take him or her a minimum 6.8
years to do just one round advisory visit to farmer households. So how many
farmer households will see an extension worker in a given year? For 7 days of
duty in a week, only 365 farmer households will see an extension worker in any
given year. This gives us a percentage of approximately 15%. This is the state
of affairs in Uganda today. The foregoing assumes that extension workers work
for seven days and offer efficient advice to farmers, which in most cases is –
anyway- just an assumption!
For
example, while holding fireplace conversations with farmers across Uganda, they
held strong views that the rural nature of most farm enterprises remains a
challenge to graduate and fresh extension workers from college; these fresh
professionals –it was reported are keen on urban life rather than spend time
with farmers. They are usually hanging out around trading centres watching
premiership football and enjoying other trappings of peri-urban life. Are there
mechanisms to measure results of extension service providers, who are paid
wages from a public purse? Your guess is as good as mine.
How
do we crack this state affairs? Do we leave solutions to policy makers and technocrats?
Do we stop at calling for reinstatement and restoration of regional district
farm demonstrations and stock farms? A
solution may perhaps lie in harnessing private –private and public –private
partnerships. There is for example a pool of Extension Link farmers that were in
late 1990’s trained by Uganda National Farmers Federation (UNFFE) all over
Uganda in Animal Husbandry and Agronomic practices. These extension link
farmers can be easily indentified and retooled. They carry yellow and blue
certificated bearing their credentials. Can an alliance between the Farmers
federation and NAADS bring down the current expansive farmer-extension worker
ratio and abridge the current information gap at the farm level? There are
other private sector companies like Mukwano and others that have trained and
work with a cartel of highly trained and efficient extensionists. Can they be
piggybacked on? Government should coordinate and placate them for a national
farmer extension services response. Let’s keep thinking.
Morrison Rwakakamba
Chief
Executive Officer
Agency
for Transformation
Re-imagining agricultural and
environmental policy
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