Uganda should be a maize republic
Oct 24, 2004
Those close to me know my love-hate relationship with bananas. One of the wars that might have to be fought in my family is likely to be caused by bananas.
Those close to me know my love-hate relationship with bananas. One of the wars that might have to be fought in my family is likely to be caused by bananas.
Every passing day I come to hate bananas more and more. Why? Just because every time I am reminded that my district, Bushenyi, has a very high rate of malnutrition and stunted growth among children partly because of over-relying on bananas which almost have zero nutritional value.
I now think that given the level of stunted growth of Uganda it seems it has been fed on bananas for 42 years. I suggest that if we do not want to keep Uganda a “banana republic†and stunted we have to look for a serious crop to promote our image and lead us out of poverty.
My crop is maize. Having lived for over four decades in Uganda, I agree with those who assert that Uganda can be a food basket for Africa. But then why is it that Uganda might be one of those countries with the most precarious food security systems?
Whenever we have prolonged drought, some districts go to the verge of starvation, and start calling on World Food Programme for relief! I strongly believer that our biggest asset to trade us out of poverty is agriculture. The only problem is that we are an agricultural country without agriculturalists both by culture and trade.
Agriculture is not a priority in this country — not with a paltry budget allocation of 2% in 2004/05, which, by the way, is a reduction from about 3.4% in the previous year! But whom do we blame for this? The officials in the Ministry of Agriculture must be very poor negotiators. They have not put a convincing argument for their sector. But at institutional and strategic planning level, are you aware also that there are very few secondary schools in this country still offering Agriculture as a subject at Higher School Certificate?
In primary schools agriculture is more of a form of punishment for errant children rather than a promotion of a serious vocational and examinable subject. Why shouldn’t the Ministry of Education and Sports make Agriculture a compulsory subject for every Ugandan student up to secondary level? This way we would have a population that cherishes agriculture and start developing strong agricultural values. Talk about the relevance of education.
I also have a problem with the Ministry of Agriculture which is headed by some of the best brains, but the best we are getting from them is simply a ‘Plan for Mismanagement of Agriculture’ instead of the much touted real Plan for Modernisation of Agriculture (PMA).
If indeed the ministry is committed to modernising agriculture, that is, turning peasant agriculturists into commercial oriented farmers, we may need to be told how many peasant farmers the ministry has transformed into commercial farmers so far. I bet we are seeing the reverse. To farm in this country is tantamount to being condemned to perpetual poverty. The people in the Ministry of Agriculture may have to tell us why. Let me cease fire here for the time being and turn again to maize.
Why do I put my money on maize as a wonder crop that could easily become the saviour for Uganda? First, maize has the potential for becoming the main staple food for Uganda in the next 10 years. It is already a staple diet for all institutions in Uganda. And compared with the other staple foods it has comparably higher nutritional value. Secondly, it is grown and consumed in all the eastern and southern African states.
In Uganda, maize is grown in all regions with the Eastern Region leading. Thirdly, apart from South Africa, the rest of the maize-dependent countries do not produce sufficient quantities for their home consumption. There is therefore potential market for Ugandan maize all the time being a staple food Ugandans and the population in the eastern and southern African region. Maize therefore addresses both the food security for the country and region at large, as well as being a potentially larger forex earner for the country.
Maize availability in most of the eastern and southern African countries is equated to food security. In this area, it is estimated that the maize consumption is about 15 million metric tonnes per year. Unfortunately, because the region cannot produce enough, it has to meet its deficit through imports. It is estimated that between 1997 and 2001, the region had to spend about 3.2 billion dollars on maize imports.
On the other hand, the intra-regional maize imports amounted to a mere 107 million dollars. Incidentally, even our neighbour, Kenya, which is so far the greatest importer of Ugandan maize, still needs more from South Africa.
Amidst all this potential, many farmers cry of lack of market for maize! Is it possible that Uganda could have earned much of the 3.2 billion dollars during this period by having a better organised Ministry of Agriculture, and also for Trade and Industry?
What is wrong with Uganda? If I had my way, this would be an accountability issue for the officials in the relevant ministries. Imagine if this was an income to Uganda, how much it would mean to us? Perhaps our external debt would not be escalating the way it is doing now? Maybe we would now be turning to the agricultural sector to boost our revenue and hence reducing our budget deficit.
Amidst all this, many farmers in Uganda complain of lack of market for their maize produce. In fact what they mean is low farm-gate prices for maize going for as low as sh30.
A farmer earns as little as sh3000 for a 100-kg bag, which does not make sense. This is even not guaranteed at times, so the farmers have to put up with a few maize bags in their houses as they wait for the buyers. This obviously is a demotivator and as a result they do not plant the next season, which results in shortage. Such is our maize politics! In spite of these shortcomings, maize remains the crop with the largest potential for producing for both domestic consumption and export. What in my opinion is lacking is for a slight state intervention. It should not be left entirely to the private sector.
The farmers need crop finance while the traders need low-interest bank loans. the state may consider investing in infrastructure in form of mega capacity silos for processing and storage to ensure that produce is always bought off from the farmers to create room for more produce.
The state must ensure quality control and provide market information to the farmers and traders. The farmers should be helped to adopt group-marketing strategies to avoid exploitation by middlemen.
The writer is the Deputy Executive Director, Uganda Debt Network, a pro-poor civil society organisation
Every passing day I come to hate bananas more and more. Why? Just because every time I am reminded that my district, Bushenyi, has a very high rate of malnutrition and stunted growth among children partly because of over-relying on bananas which almost have zero nutritional value.
I now think that given the level of stunted growth of Uganda it seems it has been fed on bananas for 42 years. I suggest that if we do not want to keep Uganda a “banana republic†and stunted we have to look for a serious crop to promote our image and lead us out of poverty.
My crop is maize. Having lived for over four decades in Uganda, I agree with those who assert that Uganda can be a food basket for Africa. But then why is it that Uganda might be one of those countries with the most precarious food security systems?
Whenever we have prolonged drought, some districts go to the verge of starvation, and start calling on World Food Programme for relief! I strongly believer that our biggest asset to trade us out of poverty is agriculture. The only problem is that we are an agricultural country without agriculturalists both by culture and trade.
Agriculture is not a priority in this country — not with a paltry budget allocation of 2% in 2004/05, which, by the way, is a reduction from about 3.4% in the previous year! But whom do we blame for this? The officials in the Ministry of Agriculture must be very poor negotiators. They have not put a convincing argument for their sector. But at institutional and strategic planning level, are you aware also that there are very few secondary schools in this country still offering Agriculture as a subject at Higher School Certificate?
In primary schools agriculture is more of a form of punishment for errant children rather than a promotion of a serious vocational and examinable subject. Why shouldn’t the Ministry of Education and Sports make Agriculture a compulsory subject for every Ugandan student up to secondary level? This way we would have a population that cherishes agriculture and start developing strong agricultural values. Talk about the relevance of education.
I also have a problem with the Ministry of Agriculture which is headed by some of the best brains, but the best we are getting from them is simply a ‘Plan for Mismanagement of Agriculture’ instead of the much touted real Plan for Modernisation of Agriculture (PMA).
If indeed the ministry is committed to modernising agriculture, that is, turning peasant agriculturists into commercial oriented farmers, we may need to be told how many peasant farmers the ministry has transformed into commercial farmers so far. I bet we are seeing the reverse. To farm in this country is tantamount to being condemned to perpetual poverty. The people in the Ministry of Agriculture may have to tell us why. Let me cease fire here for the time being and turn again to maize.
Why do I put my money on maize as a wonder crop that could easily become the saviour for Uganda? First, maize has the potential for becoming the main staple food for Uganda in the next 10 years. It is already a staple diet for all institutions in Uganda. And compared with the other staple foods it has comparably higher nutritional value. Secondly, it is grown and consumed in all the eastern and southern African states.
In Uganda, maize is grown in all regions with the Eastern Region leading. Thirdly, apart from South Africa, the rest of the maize-dependent countries do not produce sufficient quantities for their home consumption. There is therefore potential market for Ugandan maize all the time being a staple food Ugandans and the population in the eastern and southern African region. Maize therefore addresses both the food security for the country and region at large, as well as being a potentially larger forex earner for the country.
Maize availability in most of the eastern and southern African countries is equated to food security. In this area, it is estimated that the maize consumption is about 15 million metric tonnes per year. Unfortunately, because the region cannot produce enough, it has to meet its deficit through imports. It is estimated that between 1997 and 2001, the region had to spend about 3.2 billion dollars on maize imports.
On the other hand, the intra-regional maize imports amounted to a mere 107 million dollars. Incidentally, even our neighbour, Kenya, which is so far the greatest importer of Ugandan maize, still needs more from South Africa.
Amidst all this potential, many farmers cry of lack of market for maize! Is it possible that Uganda could have earned much of the 3.2 billion dollars during this period by having a better organised Ministry of Agriculture, and also for Trade and Industry?
What is wrong with Uganda? If I had my way, this would be an accountability issue for the officials in the relevant ministries. Imagine if this was an income to Uganda, how much it would mean to us? Perhaps our external debt would not be escalating the way it is doing now? Maybe we would now be turning to the agricultural sector to boost our revenue and hence reducing our budget deficit.
Amidst all this, many farmers in Uganda complain of lack of market for their maize produce. In fact what they mean is low farm-gate prices for maize going for as low as sh30.
A farmer earns as little as sh3000 for a 100-kg bag, which does not make sense. This is even not guaranteed at times, so the farmers have to put up with a few maize bags in their houses as they wait for the buyers. This obviously is a demotivator and as a result they do not plant the next season, which results in shortage. Such is our maize politics! In spite of these shortcomings, maize remains the crop with the largest potential for producing for both domestic consumption and export. What in my opinion is lacking is for a slight state intervention. It should not be left entirely to the private sector.
The farmers need crop finance while the traders need low-interest bank loans. the state may consider investing in infrastructure in form of mega capacity silos for processing and storage to ensure that produce is always bought off from the farmers to create room for more produce.
The state must ensure quality control and provide market information to the farmers and traders. The farmers should be helped to adopt group-marketing strategies to avoid exploitation by middlemen.
The writer is the Deputy Executive Director, Uganda Debt Network, a pro-poor civil society organisation