Improving agriculture for Uganda

Jul 18, 2016

The cellphone revolution has been enabled by another discovery- that of the Internet, as humanity’s 24/7 virtual meeting point where research, trade, medicine, commodities, money, security, power and values are leveraged by the strong and transmitted daily to the weak.

By Odrek Rwabwogo

In the last 30 years that the Movement has been in power, the world has witnessed three life-changing discoveries, no less in significance than the landing of a man on the moon, July 20 1969.

Only that these discoveries have been less in outer space and more with us on earth. The first is the rapid uptake and pervasiveness of the mobile telephone technology from a simple voice call to a trading, entertainment and banking platform that brings the world's poorest and richest on the same channel. It has helped to bridge distances on our planet and significantly lowered the costs of communication.

The cellphone revolution has been enabled by another discovery- that of the Internet, as humanity's 24/7 virtual meeting point where research, trade, medicine, commodities, money, security, power and values are leveraged by the strong and transmitted daily to the weak.

No single international policy instrument, in my opinion, since the birth of the notion of territorial sovereignty in 1648 at the treaty of Westphalia (north western Germany) which allowed delineated boundaries for warring European polities, has been such a leveler of borders allowing content on food, culture, language and products of one nation to flow into another unchecked.

The world is now in the grip of the third and most powerful of the three discoveries - that of technological singularity. This is the fact of super computers developed to clone man's every action and thought processes and combine the computer's artificial intelligence with man's innate biological and nervous system, to create a ‘brain-computer' interface. This interface is literally the birth of a new super human being on earth with far more capabilities and strength than you and me and most likely will replace a natural human being in generations to come. At the risk of sounding as someone speaking about extraterrestrial life, we are already beginning to experience the effects of the theory of singularity.

According to the International Federation of Robotics, global shipments of industrial robots increased by more than 60% between 2000 and 2012, with total sales of about USD28bn in 2012, roughly equivalent to the total size of Uganda's economy. The fastest growing market is China where robot installations grew 25% between 2005-2012. This super computer revolution has far reaching implication on such vital things as labour, food, wealth and the security of our planet, especially weak nations.

In the same 30 years when these changes have happened, Agriculture in Uganda has not made a leap, both in strategic and tactical terms. I choose these military terms deliberately because food, fabrics, leather, wood- the substance that constitutes agriculture, have an attested dexterity to raise household incomes. Agriculture, therefore, falls in the field vision of any nation's most preserved defense capabilities. Uganda has had accelerated changes in her people's lifestyle, fashion, music, cars, housing and construction since 1986 but the country retains a hollering 68% of the population in subsistence farming; an ancient food cultivation mode chronically devoid of any growth. It is a very chilling introspection when you know your neighbor has grown beyond the basic necessities of life and is focused on creating a super human being to replace you and your children soon, while you on your part, haven't even figured out your food security needs, the manufacturing of your own clothing, the transportation of your people and the defense of your own homeland.

Agriculture is twice as much effective in reducing poverty and raising a majority of the citizens' incomes quicker than many other sectors. It is the best weapon with which to address unemployment for nations with young populations that aren't yet strong on technological skills. As an example, Britain introduced the art of weaving wool fabric from the Flanders (West Belgium and northern France), progressively imported cotton from India as early 1298 and eventually held colonial plantations abroad to expand the trade. But the point is that in just half a century (1803-1857), the country increased her cotton and wool-weaving looms from 24,000 to 250,000 and in the process introduced her poor farming communities to new technologies and manufacturing, lifting millions of them out of poverty. Technology related farm production is key to ending poverty. Why, therefore, is Uganda's agriculture, even with the examples available in our world today, still synonymous with low levels of productivity, a high prevalence of disease for crops and animals, chronic water shortages, low usage of fertilizers, very limited application of irrigation technologies and poor infrastructure at farms and within communities?

In this segment, we will attempt to answer this question by identifying two possible causes and perhaps the understanding of these causes will bring us closer to the solution. The understanding of the antecedent requires us to first go back to the beginning of Uganda's land ownership problems. On September 20, 2009, I met three old men in the village of Nakitooma, Migyera parish (Nabisweera sub county) in Nakasongora district. These were Naftali Kyamuhangire (80), Elukana Kwebeya (73) and Cranmer Butagasa (77). These are Baruli men (The word Buruuli is a ‘quilted' version of the adverb ‘Abadduuli' from the verb ‘Okudduula' or someone who brags about their wealth); traditions have it that the Baruuli were the cattle rich cousins of the Banyoro from Kabalega's kingdom. They were governed by Princess Nyangoma, daughter of Kabalega who he sent to preside over matters in this part of his kingdom.

The Baruuli have a very rich history but their herds unfortunately were decimated by rinderpest or ‘sotoka' disease in Kiruuli, just before the British wars of conquest and much of their story has been subsumed by their big neighbors, the Baganda. It isn't commonly stated but the reader might wish to know that the kingdom of Bunyoro was on both banks of the river Nile before the arrival of the British, taking in such nationalities as the Bagweere, Baguungu, Banyaala and the Balamoogi in the eastern part of Uganda.

The old men I met that day were all second-generation tenants/occupants of land that was meant to be their great grandparents' on which they were born and raised but land they sadly don't and would not be able to own unless supported by a ‘land-buy-back' government programme.

They cannot develop, commercialize, rent, lease out, and/or take it to the bank to raise capital, even if the 1998 Land Act allows them some measureable level of freedom to do some developments. This is because, although they have lived on it for generations, they are restricted as to how much and what they can do on the land.

Mzee Kyamuhangire lives on land owned by the late Kiwanuka as a registered holder of rights, Mzee Kwebiya on land owned by Mr. Muzimba Ggwanga whose father was a Gomborora chief in the area, while Mzee Butagasa squats on land owned by Mr. Tito Bbale. These three old men will sadly pass this predicament of occupying but not being able to own land, to their children, who will in turn pass it on their own children unless something sudden happens in the foreseeable future in terms of effective land reform for Uganda.

The above story can be repeated for Kayunga, Mukono, Kibaale, Kagadi and Buliisa districts, several parts of the greater Ankore and the central Buganda region. These areas also happen to be some of the most fertile arable commercial agricultural lands in the country. The above account brings into sharp focus a key issue the Movement government has glossed over, without whose resolution, it will be difficult to increase farm productivity and rapidly raise rural incomes in Uganda in the long run.

There is urgent need for land reform if we have to encourage the young generation into profitable, commercial farming. Right now, the entry costs including the legal and bureaucratic structures that beget corruption, are extremely prohibitive to those who genuinely want to invest in agriculture without engendering evictions, violence and disorder on land. Unless one is a large-scale investor with guarantees from government, it is difficult to find, own and develop sizable commercial farming plots.

This is happening when we know very well; no country has had a sustainable green revolution without first providing a singular, clear and flexible system that provides a path to ownership as opposed to the current multiple tenure structures. There is a clear need for a strong non-politicized leadership to drive the changes on land otherwise many of the supporters of the Movement who knew political freedom also meant ability to own a piece of their birthplace, are deeply disappointed. South Korea, USA, Britain, China, Argentina, Brazil and many developed and emerging nations, have all had to carry out large-scale, sometimes painful, land reform processes to make the best use of land and ownership for their people. Recent reforms in China have freed idle lands into agricultural productivity as more people migrate to cities for higher wages.

What the Movement did was simply to acknowledge the injustice of the past but keep the situation created in 1900 by Governor Harry Johnston and his collaborators, intact. As an example, the Busuulu (ground rent) and Envujjo (tribute on produce) laws of 1927 in Buganda, which fixed Bibanja rents to landlords who had been imposed on these hapless peasants in the first place, were nominally reviewed with powers to decide the rates given to land tribunals and the minister, in the 1998 land act, but overall the structure was firmly kept. This action went along with the recognition of other previously repealed ownership laws, the Ankore landlord and tenants law and the Toro Landlord and tenants law, both of 1937.

Customary ownership in large areas of the East and the North where there is communal use was kept intact and even promoted yet we all know that private property ownership gives rise to responsible use which in turn builds wealth for families and country is easier to transfer and provides better management than communal forms. Leasehold tenure and Freehold and/or Mailo land structures were all penciled in as land holding measures; but in reality we kept things as they were before the 1995 constitution, apart from repealing the 1975 land decree.

This locked up a vital tool for economic transformation in cheap politics instead of taking a radical stance that would allow a phased, well-planned and properly communicated with good sensitization, a land redistribution programme that makes land available for economic growth. The Movement missed an opportunity to do this at its peak of popularity and believability.

Land is an asset not just a possession. We can perhaps equate it with currency or a medium of exchange that one uses and leaves and another man comes along, renews it and continues extracting value through production. How do you fully extract value from something you simply sit on, have restrictions about and don't own?

The Movement simply guaranteed usage of land but not its true ownership. In the case of the three old men, neither the owners' (absentee landlords) benefit from the current structure because they can only extract non-commercial rents as restricted by the law and cannot evict someone who is paying this small money. Nor does the occupants' (Bibanja holders) gain much because they cannot use their occupancy certificates to raise capital for investment. In any case, banks don't lend to these kinds of owners because the land has tenants (a huge and costly encumbrance) and neither do they lend to tenants because they are small plot holders and don't have ownership certificates- a sad impediment for agricultural reform in Uganda.

The principle of ownership creates responsibility, security and access to finance outside what pubic systems such as micro finance, NAADS, Youth, Women funds offer. It allows owners to get the best-qualified use of land that the next generation can base on to exploit their land, if they (the current generation) themselves are unable to do it in their time.

Smallholder Bibanja owners cannot claim security; they are unable to generate production that gives them economies of scale and are incapable of making use of better tools and equipment. There can only be limited use of technology in these kinds of circumstances, which complicates other matters, such the use of water and fertilizers at the farm or even the signing of partnerships with skilled institutions to improve farm performance. This is the reason, apart from costs, as a nation, Uganda invests more in hand held hoes for use by our tattered Gomesi attired mothers who grow food at the back of their small grass thatched houses; food eaten by the elite in cities and we put less in tractors. Tractors require maintenance, skill and large tracts of land a user has security of ownership over so as to get long-term maximum value. Uganda had a total import of 7500 tractors for the year 2015, the highest in decades up from 4500 in 2011, but to understand how so few these are, you need to look at the Boda-boda importation. Uganda reached a peak on average of 8,626,000 motorcycles in 2015, spending USD58m with 89% of this money going to India, 6.3% to China and 2.7% to Japan. Boda-Bodas seem to make more sense for youth employment in Uganda than agriculture. This is sad and it has a long-term negative effect on the uptake of technology at the farms.

We certainly can change this.

Section 41 of the 1998 land Act allows the set up and financing of a Land bank. We can work within this law to raise internal and external low cost financing and provide resources to ‘willing buyers' to purchase land from ‘willing sellers' so that we end the current impasse that has stalled our agricultural revolution. When the willing buyer and willing seller principle is exhausted, we can provide further incentives to attract the offloading of more idle land into the bank and we can trade this on our stock exchange and raise more money to finance youth starts up in Agriculture. Along with the mapping and titling of land, the sensitization of tenants and landlords about their rights and responsibilities, a revamped land registration system, fully computerized manned by trained personnel, we could bring solutions to our agriculture sector by freeing resources to develop it.

The writer is entrepreneur and farmer

 

 

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});