Should farmers wait for MPS to be schooled in cassava science?

SCIENCE | AGRICULTURE

By Isaac Ongu

Last week Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB) released results for the Uganda Advance Certificate of Education (UACE) and the results show only 50% of those who sat for science subjects passed.

The state minister for higher education, John Muyingo, was quick to put blame on teachers and himself failing to refer to any scientific findings to back his claim. The continued poor performance in science comes at a time when the country is in need of scientists to solve rampant challenges in health, environment and agriculture. As students emerge from science failures, some MPs feel they need to be taught biotechnology before they can legislate for its regulation. Given the 50% failure rate, should farmers continue to wait for the slow-learning legislators as their crops get ravaged by pests and diseases?

Looking at agriculture, where over 70% of Ugandans derive their livelihoods from, the associated challenges of drought, pests, diseases and malnutrition require science-based intervention. The Government has given lip service to scientists by not fulfilling on the pledge of adequate remuneration, and providing favourable policies where scientists can operate freely and competitively.

The New Vision of February 21, reported of the suffering of subsistence farmers in Ngora district as a result of the main staple food, cassava, getting ravaged by cassava brown streak disease. Cassava brown streak disease is a viral disease that causes root rot in cassava and can lead to 100% yield loss. Scientists from the National Agricultural Research Organisation (NARO) have been telling Ugandans that the current cassava varieties are susceptible or only tolerant to cassava brown streak diseases and proposing a more sustainable option, which is availing farmers with resistant cassava varieties. The Cassava brown streak virus is spread by white flies. This implies that even when a farmer begins with a clean cassava cutting, it can be infected in the course of crop growth.

The Operation Wealth Creation (OWC) soldiers who have been distributing planting materials will only keep distributing varieties that could perhaps survive for a short time. Despite the effort, OWC cannot distribute enough planting materials continuously to all farmers. A more sustainable option which is a resistant variety is urgently required.

The mentality that some policy makers have adopted, of deliberately ignoring professional advice from scientists is depriving the poor farmers of improved crop varieties that could enabled them overcome major challenges. Claiming the need to grasp the scientific procedures involved in developing a resistant variety before they can give a go for scientists to release new varieties is counterproductive in a country where farmers' crops are failing in the presence of blocked solutions. Currently, scientists globally and in Uganda, are applying biotechnology to address challenges of diseases such as the cassava brown streak diseases which have failed to be addressed through traditional breeding methods.

Cassava brown streak disease is not the only challenge farmers are battling with. Banana bacterial wilt too has made the cost of growing banana so high, forcing poor subsistence farmers out of meaningful production. Maize crop as well has been attacked by the fall armyworm, causing losses to both farmers and the Government.

With the three major staples attacked, and the cries of affected farmers, policy makers should abandon politicking and listen up. Instead of resisting the solutions scientists are bringing and frustrating it through reckless penalties, policy makers should come on board and support scientists who are mandated by law to ensure a food secure nation. Any form of hunger and anger coming from grassroots are largely because of the so many legislators who want to first be taken in labs to learn a subject that an average Ugandan is failing.

The writer is an agriculturist

isaacongu@gmail.com