SCOUL can look elsewhere for sugarcane plantation!
Oct 26, 2006
THE debate started by President Yoweri Museveni to degazett part of Mabira forest to SCOUL to boost sugar production, investment, jobs, and tax revenue should not be rested until consensus based on valid facts is reached.
SAYING IT WITHOUT FEAR OR FAVOUR - Ofwono Opondo
THE debate started by President Yoweri Museveni to degazett part of Mabira forest to SCOUL to boost sugar production, investment, jobs, and tax revenue should not be rested until consensus based on valid facts is reached.
While launching the Government Media Centre two months ago, Museveni said he had asked NEMA to give him unique benefits that Mabira adds to the environment so he could drop his proposal. Now, there have been very many commentaries from business, and ecological sides but the piece by Mr. Gaster Kiyingi, PR manager of the National Forestry Authority “Why emulate a cannibal who eats his children?†published on October 3 was excellent and informative, which I hope the president has read, and should be accepted.
Kiyingi gave and illustrated not only the ecological benefit but included the monetary costs as well. I believe that the NRM sympathisers, supporters, activists and officials who enthusiastically support Museveni should lead opposition to this proposal, and offer alternatives options instead of degrading Mabira. We should do this first to show there are divergent views to Museveni’s within the NRM, and that he listens to well- informed, intended, and articulated facts.
The opposition, and external critics must be denied any credibility and political capital in defending this issue because NRM supporters are just sitting on their hands with mouths shut! Although not an environmental expert like Ken Lukyamuzi or Afuunaddula, and as we wait for NEMA’s red-tape response, I know that Mabira, and the Mpanga, Kyasonzi, Muduma, and Nawandigi clusters in Mpigi district, which are already degraded are the only natural tropical rain forests in the central region (Buganda).
The others are the little dots along Lake Victoria shores, while the whole of Bulemezi and Singo are just shrubs. This alone is enough caution to Museveni to tread carefully on Mabira because there is no evidence that government or private individuals are planting forest covers in Buganda.
Degazetting Mabira could set Budongo, Maramagambo, Kibale, or Bwindi impenetrable forests as the next target to investors who want land on the cheap!
Reliable sources say that the trade ministry is routing for SCOUL to take Mabira because dealers in timber, firewood, charcoal, and peasant crop cultivators have already degraded the forest, and therefore no problem giving to a major investor! This view ought to be dismissed because it was government failure that led to encroachment, and it is still its duty evict them so Mabira regenerates.
Forest encroachers are illegal occupants and are not protected by any law just like those who had settled on the Kampala-Entebbe road reserve who were evicted and their property demolished.
The initial burden should be on the Ministry of Finance, and Economic Planning, National Planning Authority, Uganda Investment Authority (UIA), and SCOUL to bring out data that degazetting forests for sugarcane growing is indeed a viable and sustainable option, and that there are no other alternatives.
Some experts on sugar technology from Brazil, Cuba, Malawi, Kenya, and Sudan have recently stated that Uganda uses obsolete methods in addition to poor variety cane leading to low productivity per hectare. And yet for months SCOUL has chosen to keep quiet instead of challenging this view if it were false!
Fred Babweteera, a plant scientist writing from the University of Oxford actually referred us to a FAO website showing Uganda to have the lowest yield per hectare at 12.8 t/ha, Kenya at 86 t/ha, Sudan 85 t/ha, Malawi 105 t/ha. If land is SCOUL’s major problem, let them plant and nurture to maturity an equivalent area of artificial forest cover of the part given to them from Mabira in either Nakasongola, Iganga, Bugiri, Tororo, Kumi, Bukedea or Soroti, which are bare.
Even if these figures were not accurate, SCOUL can contract sugarcane outgrowers within Mukono, and the neighbouring districts of Jinja, Kayunga, Wakiso, Luwero, Mpigi and Nakasongola. In fact this would be in line with government’s overall economic strategy of empowering households with reliable income.
The president has said that he would not want SCOUL to acquire land far away from its factory at Lugazi, as this increases production costs.
This may be true only if SCOUL and government does not plan road and railway network. Importers of sugar from other continents make profits in Uganda, and so SCOUL can as well provided the other factors of production such as reliable energy, water, communication, skilled manpower, and transport network costs are sustainable, and this is what government ought to do, not cutting down forests.
Government has leased out the railway network hopefully to an able company that will refurbish old lines and build new ones so that SCOUL, Kinyara, and Kakira find it affordable, convenient and reliable to transport sugarcane from as far as Amuru, Atiak, and Patiko, and Aswa where the line to Southern Sudan is supposed to pass.
Before 1986, Ugandans believed that Ankole, which is 400km away could only bring to Kampala cattle for slaughter because it was then the main market. But today with Buganda crying for Federo instead of production, potatoes, matooke, milk, tomatoes, cabbages, and even onions come from as far as Kisoro, Kabale, Kanungu, Kasese, and Ruhinda in Bushenyi making profits, and yet no one advocates that these farmers and traders be protected from long distances!
Similarly, producers of cassava, sweet potatoes, groundnuts and millet from Kitgum, Gulu, Lira, Amuria, Katakwi, and Bukwa districts make money by bringing raw products often more than 400km to Kampala.
THE debate started by President Yoweri Museveni to degazett part of Mabira forest to SCOUL to boost sugar production, investment, jobs, and tax revenue should not be rested until consensus based on valid facts is reached.
While launching the Government Media Centre two months ago, Museveni said he had asked NEMA to give him unique benefits that Mabira adds to the environment so he could drop his proposal. Now, there have been very many commentaries from business, and ecological sides but the piece by Mr. Gaster Kiyingi, PR manager of the National Forestry Authority “Why emulate a cannibal who eats his children?†published on October 3 was excellent and informative, which I hope the president has read, and should be accepted.
Kiyingi gave and illustrated not only the ecological benefit but included the monetary costs as well. I believe that the NRM sympathisers, supporters, activists and officials who enthusiastically support Museveni should lead opposition to this proposal, and offer alternatives options instead of degrading Mabira. We should do this first to show there are divergent views to Museveni’s within the NRM, and that he listens to well- informed, intended, and articulated facts.
The opposition, and external critics must be denied any credibility and political capital in defending this issue because NRM supporters are just sitting on their hands with mouths shut! Although not an environmental expert like Ken Lukyamuzi or Afuunaddula, and as we wait for NEMA’s red-tape response, I know that Mabira, and the Mpanga, Kyasonzi, Muduma, and Nawandigi clusters in Mpigi district, which are already degraded are the only natural tropical rain forests in the central region (Buganda).
The others are the little dots along Lake Victoria shores, while the whole of Bulemezi and Singo are just shrubs. This alone is enough caution to Museveni to tread carefully on Mabira because there is no evidence that government or private individuals are planting forest covers in Buganda.
Degazetting Mabira could set Budongo, Maramagambo, Kibale, or Bwindi impenetrable forests as the next target to investors who want land on the cheap!
Reliable sources say that the trade ministry is routing for SCOUL to take Mabira because dealers in timber, firewood, charcoal, and peasant crop cultivators have already degraded the forest, and therefore no problem giving to a major investor! This view ought to be dismissed because it was government failure that led to encroachment, and it is still its duty evict them so Mabira regenerates.
Forest encroachers are illegal occupants and are not protected by any law just like those who had settled on the Kampala-Entebbe road reserve who were evicted and their property demolished.
The initial burden should be on the Ministry of Finance, and Economic Planning, National Planning Authority, Uganda Investment Authority (UIA), and SCOUL to bring out data that degazetting forests for sugarcane growing is indeed a viable and sustainable option, and that there are no other alternatives.
Some experts on sugar technology from Brazil, Cuba, Malawi, Kenya, and Sudan have recently stated that Uganda uses obsolete methods in addition to poor variety cane leading to low productivity per hectare. And yet for months SCOUL has chosen to keep quiet instead of challenging this view if it were false!
Fred Babweteera, a plant scientist writing from the University of Oxford actually referred us to a FAO website showing Uganda to have the lowest yield per hectare at 12.8 t/ha, Kenya at 86 t/ha, Sudan 85 t/ha, Malawi 105 t/ha. If land is SCOUL’s major problem, let them plant and nurture to maturity an equivalent area of artificial forest cover of the part given to them from Mabira in either Nakasongola, Iganga, Bugiri, Tororo, Kumi, Bukedea or Soroti, which are bare.
Even if these figures were not accurate, SCOUL can contract sugarcane outgrowers within Mukono, and the neighbouring districts of Jinja, Kayunga, Wakiso, Luwero, Mpigi and Nakasongola. In fact this would be in line with government’s overall economic strategy of empowering households with reliable income.
The president has said that he would not want SCOUL to acquire land far away from its factory at Lugazi, as this increases production costs.
This may be true only if SCOUL and government does not plan road and railway network. Importers of sugar from other continents make profits in Uganda, and so SCOUL can as well provided the other factors of production such as reliable energy, water, communication, skilled manpower, and transport network costs are sustainable, and this is what government ought to do, not cutting down forests.
Government has leased out the railway network hopefully to an able company that will refurbish old lines and build new ones so that SCOUL, Kinyara, and Kakira find it affordable, convenient and reliable to transport sugarcane from as far as Amuru, Atiak, and Patiko, and Aswa where the line to Southern Sudan is supposed to pass.
Before 1986, Ugandans believed that Ankole, which is 400km away could only bring to Kampala cattle for slaughter because it was then the main market. But today with Buganda crying for Federo instead of production, potatoes, matooke, milk, tomatoes, cabbages, and even onions come from as far as Kisoro, Kabale, Kanungu, Kasese, and Ruhinda in Bushenyi making profits, and yet no one advocates that these farmers and traders be protected from long distances!
Similarly, producers of cassava, sweet potatoes, groundnuts and millet from Kitgum, Gulu, Lira, Amuria, Katakwi, and Bukwa districts make money by bringing raw products often more than 400km to Kampala.