From the Editor: Agriculture show turning into a circus?
Jul 26, 2011
YOU needed to attend the just-concluded annual national farmers show in Jinja to see how Uganda’s agriculture sector is fairing. Harvest Money team did just that and what we saw was worrying.
YOU needed to attend the just-concluded annual national farmers show in Jinja to see how Uganda’s agriculture sector is fairing. Harvest Money team did just that and what we saw was worrying.
From a distance, the show appeared vibrant; with throngs of knowledge-hungry farmers moving from stall to stall, asking probing questions, grabbing any freebie on offer and digging into their not so deep pockets to buy what took their fancy. To a casual observer, it was business as usual. To the discerning eye, however, there was something hollow about the show. It started with the visitors.
Among others, the show attracted students from all over the country and beyond. At one point, the expansive show ground looked like a sea of school uniforms. However, very few of these students were interested in the agricultural side of the show.
You could tell this by monitoring the stalls that were attracting a lot of students. These included a mobile photo studio with a beach, not a farm, as its backdrop. There was even an academic gown for those who wanted to take a picture posing as graduates.
Also popular were stalls exhibiting tractors and other farm machinery. A student would pose for a picture next to some gleaming farm machine and afterwards stalk off without finding out what it does. A circus, complete with a merry go round and caged wild animals, was another crowd puller. If you asked these students what impressed them at the show, they would certainly mention the wild animals, the merry go round and as a by the way, the various farm animals exhibited.
The few, who made “forced stopovers†at stalls exhibiting “mundane†farming technologies such as drip irrigation, could hardly hide their boredom. At one stall, a frustrated teacher had to slap some inspiration into a student whose attention had been captured by a stilt dancer. With the country’s youthful majority disinterested in agriculture, are we surprised that the sector is just shuffling along, sustained by the elderly minority?
And is it right to continue calling the annual Jinja event an agriculture show?
From a distance, the show appeared vibrant; with throngs of knowledge-hungry farmers moving from stall to stall, asking probing questions, grabbing any freebie on offer and digging into their not so deep pockets to buy what took their fancy. To a casual observer, it was business as usual. To the discerning eye, however, there was something hollow about the show. It started with the visitors.
Among others, the show attracted students from all over the country and beyond. At one point, the expansive show ground looked like a sea of school uniforms. However, very few of these students were interested in the agricultural side of the show.
You could tell this by monitoring the stalls that were attracting a lot of students. These included a mobile photo studio with a beach, not a farm, as its backdrop. There was even an academic gown for those who wanted to take a picture posing as graduates.
Also popular were stalls exhibiting tractors and other farm machinery. A student would pose for a picture next to some gleaming farm machine and afterwards stalk off without finding out what it does. A circus, complete with a merry go round and caged wild animals, was another crowd puller. If you asked these students what impressed them at the show, they would certainly mention the wild animals, the merry go round and as a by the way, the various farm animals exhibited.
The few, who made “forced stopovers†at stalls exhibiting “mundane†farming technologies such as drip irrigation, could hardly hide their boredom. At one stall, a frustrated teacher had to slap some inspiration into a student whose attention had been captured by a stilt dancer. With the country’s youthful majority disinterested in agriculture, are we surprised that the sector is just shuffling along, sustained by the elderly minority?
And is it right to continue calling the annual Jinja event an agriculture show?