Busoga need liberation from sugarcane growing - Museveni

PARISH DEVELOPMENT MODEL

STATE HOUSE - President Yoweri Museveni has said the people of Busoga need to be liberated from sugarcane growing to other ventures outlined under the Parish Development Model (PDM) if they are to get out of poverty.

The PDM is intended to scale up government efforts to support the homesteads in subsistence farming to commercialize, create wealth and gainful employment, and raise household incomes.

'Liberate the slaves'

Underlining that many people in Busoga have been enslaved and have given away their chunks of land for sugarcane growing, Museveni said this needs to change.

“For Busoga, I think I will have to go there and have a conference. We shall have to discuss how to liberate the slaves now because land has been taken by the sugarcane growers. They should get out of those contracts, regain their land and do what other people are doing in other parts of the country,” said the President.

He was addressing members of the National Resistance Movement (NRM) Central Executive Committee (CEC) at State House Entebbe on Friday.

The members received a briefing from the PDM secretariat led by Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja, local government minister Raphael Magyezi and the PDM national co-ordinator, Dennis Galabuzi Ssozi.

Vice-president Jessica Alupo Epel and Speaker of Parliament Anita Among also attended the CEC meeting as guest members.

Busoga has the biggest number of sugarcane mills and huge acreage of sugarcane, making use of its fertile soil around Lake Victoria and Lake Kyoga coupled with good rains.

Uganda Bureau of Statistics 2020 figures show that Busoga has 1.2 million poor people, of which 400,000 are living in poverty or household food insecurity because many farmers converted their arable land meant for food production for sugarcane growing.

PDM 'a saviour'

PM Nabbanja had earlier expressed worry that despite the massive sensitization about the PDM, people, especially in Kalangala and Busoga who were advised to go for oil palm growing and sugarcane growing respectively, might remain poor unless given special consideration.

“I have been to seven districts in Busoga. These people rent out their land at a cost of sh500,000 per acre for five years and they don’t have land. You see sugarcane plantations in front of their homes and those plantations are not theirs. They leased land and they are stuck," she said.

"To me this programme is a saviour because they can go for other enterprises like piggery, chicken and the like. But we need guidance on that."

Nabbanja said that since 2014, the people of Buvuma were advised to go for palm oil farming, but that many who gave out their land have not been compensated.

Under the PDM, that who own four acres of land or less will be supported in carrying out intensive farming such as zero-grazing, dairy farming, production of coffee, fruits, food crops, poultry for eggs, piggery and fish farming.

They will also be encouraged to adopt a farming model that is capable of earning $6,000 (about sh22m) per year from two acres of land, one acre for food and the other for cash crop activities.

Households that own more than four acres of land will be supported to carry out extensive farming in crops such as maize, cassava, cotton, tobacco, avocado and sugarcane because of the relatively bigger acreage of land required for investment to be profitable.

Planning for excess production

President Museveni asked the meeting to plan for the excess produce that will be realized as a result of embracing the PDM.

He directed PM Nabbanja to work closely with the finance and trade ministries, and the Private Sector Foundation to prepare how excess production will be absorbed.

“The Prime Minister and the minister of finance and that of industry must have a checklist of how many processors we have in milk, fruits, eggs, coffee, fish processing etc, and have a plan for each of those items using the private sector mainly and UDC [Uganda Development Corporation],” said Museveni.

Palm oil growing success

On her part, Vice-President Alupo asked the meeting and the PDM secretariat to borrow a leaf from the palm oil growing in Kalangala that has transformed the lives of over 2,000 farmers despite the excess production.

She said that through their solid co-operative of out-growers, they have dividends of sh14b as a result of palm oil growing the President marketed in Kalangala.

“They were telling me to ask you that you should find a way of going to see your fruits and they were saying that their cheque should be handed over to them by you,” Alupo told the President.

She added that on top of the guidance given to the Prime Minister and stakeholders on excess produce, palm oil growing “should be singled out as one of the models that can help other farmers like us in the fruits and oranges sector".

"We are still not stable sir, but we can learn a lot of lessons from the Kalangala story which is very successful," said Alupo.

'Country is excited'

Nabbanja assured the President of the success of the PDM that has so far received support from the population.

“The country is so excited, Your Excellency. They have a lot of hope in this programme, including the Opposition, to the extent that the other day I was in Nakawa and Butambala, where the members of the Opposition are the ones now campaigning for the programme to succeed,” she said.

The PM, however, expressed the need to have mechanisms or a law to deal with Ugandans, especially in Kampala, who might misbehave or disappear after receiving the funds due to the nature of their businesses.

President Museveni directed the secretariat and the local government ministry to study how they will trace people in urban areas who keep migrating from one town to the other.

“If they are not ready, we keep the money and we serve the ones who are ready and interested."

Local government minister Magyezi will report back in the next Cabinet meeting the strategies on how to deal with beneficiaries of the PDM in urban areas.

Museveni launched the initiative in February 2022 in Kibuku district. Under the programme, each of the 10,594 parishes is expected to receive sh100m to benefit various categories of people in a race to eradicate poverty.