Gov''t set to launch National Agriculture Policy

By Francis Emorut              
                                    
Government will this Friday launch the long awaited National Agriculture Policy (NAP) aimed at promoting food, nutrition security and improving household incomes.

President Yoweri Museveni is expected to preside over the function at Speke Resort Munyonyo in Kampala.

This was revealed by a government official at the Plan for Modernization of Agriculture (PMA) secretariat, Tom Kakuba.

It has taken seven years for the policy to see the light. Cabinet approved it last year in September.

Kakuba said the policy formulation was spearheaded by the ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries in consultation with other stakeholders.

But pro-farmers activists protested that they were not involved in the national agriculture policy formulation wondering what is going to happen to other policy statements on agriculture.

Kakuba explained that the NAP was developed with intention of harmonizing different policy statements to stimulate economic growth.

He was speaking during the high level stakeholders’ dialogue at Cooper Chimney Restaurant Lugogo in Kampala on Tuesday.

The dialogue held under the theme: “The National Agricultural Policy a key to Dynamic transformation of agricultural sector,” was organized by Agric-ProFocus and other partners. 

It was attended by Members of Parliament, farmers, development partners and civil society organizations.

Kakuba pointed out that the agriculture policy provides a framework to address challenges affecting agricultural sector and exploit the existing potentials.

He underlined the challenges as low productivity, low value addition and poor market access.

According to Kakuba the priorities of the NAP include; increasing household food and nutrition security, increasing incomes of farming households, commodity specialization and agro-zoning.

Other priorities are sustainable and reliable market access, sustainable use and management of agricultural resources and human resource development.

Farmer’s advocates are not impressed with the policy saying it will gather dust and will not be implemented if funds for agriculture sector are not increased.

“I hope the policy will not be shelved and it gathers dust. We would want to know concrete strategies for implementing it,” Augustine Mwendya, the chief executive secretary of Uganda National Farmers Federation demanded. 

Ayivu MP Benard Atiku said: “Without adequate resources the policy will amount to nothing.”

Bujumba MP Fred Badda rapped the agriculture ministry on the policy saying the latter was putting the cart before the horse.

“What is going to be the fate of so many policy statements? Are we going to throw them away? Are we going to somersault them?” Badda asked.

Kakuba instead appealed to MPs on Parliamentary Agriculture committee to lobby more funds for the sector but also maintained that the ministry is committed to implement the new policy.

He assured the audience that all categories of farmers, small, medium and large scale will benefit from the agricultural services.