A move from fishing to farming worsens pollution

trueIn the second year of our campaign to save Lake Victoria, Vision Group media platforms will until June 5, run investigative articles, programmes and commentaries highlighting the irresponsible human activities threatening the world’s second largest fresh water lake. Today, JOSHUA KATO looks at how the transition from fishing to farming has increased the pollution of Lake Victoria.

“If monkeys are eating your crops, eat them too.” This is one of the most famous statements about agriculture in Uganda.

It was made by the late state minister for agriculture, Kibirige Ssebunya, on a tour of Bugala, an island in Lake Victoria. Earlier, farmers in Bugala had complained to the minister that monkeys were destroying their crops.

The islanders’ complaint and the minister’s reaction show that indeed there are agricultural activities happening on the islands. Lake Victoria is bordered by 13 districts in Uganda.

These include Wakiso, Mpigi, Masaka, Kalungu, Mukono, Buikwe, Mayuge, Jinja, Bugiri, Namayingo, Buvuma, Kalangala, Rakai and Busia. While it is obvious that fishing is done on the lake, the region also has the potential of becoming Uganda’s food basket.

According to Fred Badda, the Bujumba MP, a farmer and farmers’ leader in Kalangala district, so many agricultural activities, including horticulture, floriculture, aquaculture and palm oil production, can be done in the lake basin.

“With the declining fish stocks in the lake, more and more fishermen are turning to agriculture to earn a living, and one of the enterprises they are taking up is growing oil palm,” Badda adds.

In addition to growing crops, the fishermen are also rearing livestock, albeit on a small scale. According to the estimates from the National Livestock Census 2008, there are 4,000 cows, 2,000 goats, 10,000 pigs and over 300,000 chickens on the Ugandan islands in Lake Victoria.

Palm oil farming

Oil palm trees cover over 20,000 hectares, making it the dominant agricultural activity on the main islands. The project is run by BIDCO, with a processing plant in Jinja. Although BIDCO has the largest plantation, there are hundreds of outgrowers scattered on other islands including Buvuma.

“Growing oil palm is now the largest economic activity on the islands,” says Badda.

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An oil palm outgrower Samuel Kiggundu inspects his plantation in 2011

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BIDCO oil palm outgrower Ewulaliyo Nabbosa harvests a fresh fruit bunch from her plantation

He explains that many fishermen turned to working on oil palm plantations when fish stocks in Lake Victoria dwindled a few years back.

BIDCO managing director Kodey Rao says they employ 3,000 people directly on their plantations and over 10,000 indirectly, including outgrowers and in the transport sector.

Rao says farmers are earning handsomely from the oil palm projects. Although some sections of society are unhappy that the oil palm project has taken a lot of land, local leaders see things differently. For instance, during the tenure of the former LC5 chairman of Kalangala district, Daniel Kikoola, he inspired fishermen to grow crops alongside fishing.

“If you continue fishing as your sole means of livelihood, the lake will die,” he used to tell the fishermen.

Many of them heard his wise counsel and went into farming. Badda says coffee is also another cash crop being adopted on the islands.

“I have given out over 100,000 coffee seedlings,” he says. If added to the oil palm trees, the island will have another long-term cash crop.

Horticulture

Islanders have also embraced the growing of fruits like pineapples, mangoes and oranges. For instance, there is a 12-acre pineapple plantation in Kulugulu village, Bujumba subcounty. It belongs to 29-year-old Patrick Mukwaya.

“I was a pineapple farmer on Busi Island in Busi sub-county, Wakiso district. Together with my mother and elder brother, we came to Kalangala to utilise our land that had been redundant,” he says.

There are several farmers like Mukwaya, engaging in horticulture on a relatively smaller scale, compared to similar farmers elsewhere in Uganda. Most of the pineapples are transported by boat to the mainland.

“There are at least 10 pineapple farmers on the island,” Mukwaya says.

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Kabanyoro in her pineaple garden in Hoima

However, the challenge that Mukwaya and his colleagues face is the expansion of the oil palm project, reducing the land available for other enterprises. Besides, the farmers are faced with the problem of transporting their produce to big markets.

“We rely on small boats to transport our produce to the mainland,” Mukwaya says.

Flower farming The Lake Victoria shoreline is dotted with flower farms. There is Rosebud farm at Lutembe Beach, others at Wagagai off Entebbe Road, Royal Van Zanten in Mukono and several others.

According to one of the flower farmers, the farms are located near the lake for various reasons, the key one being easy access to Entebbe airport.

“Most farms are clustered around the lake because they want to be near the airport for easy transportation,” said Charles Omulu, who works at Melissa Flower Farm.

However, the budding industry is likely to produce more thorns than flowers for the future of the lake. Apparently, many of these flower farms dispose of their waste poorly, resulting in dangerous chemicals flowing into the lake.

A research director at the National Fisheries Resources Research Institute said when it rains, pesticides and fertilisers from the various flower farms are washed into the lake. He says this has long-term implications on the ecology of the lake. Last year, Wakiso LC5 chairman Matia Lwanga Bwanika clashed with the Police at his home at Lutembe after protesting over what he called encroachment on the lake by Rosebud Flower Farm.

“They are (flower farm) filling up the shoreline with soil to plant flowers,” he said.

According to regulations of the environment watchdog, NEMA, before a farm is given a license to operate near the lake, an Environment Impact Assessment has to be done.

Indeed, according to NEMA, all the big flower farms did the assessments and were authorised to practice farming at least 200 metres from the lake. Oil palm farming also involves use of a lot of chemicals.

However, according to Badda, the environmental plan for all farmers using chemicals is that they leave a grassland of over 200 metres from the lake.

“The 200 metres act as a buffer zone and filter between the lake and the farm,” he says. Badda explains that if this regulation is enforced, chemicals will not easily flow into the lake.