Mitigating the risks of Uganda's youth population explosion

By Ibrahim Mike Okumu, PhD

As we draw closer towards the 2021 general elections the talk has been about how to tap into the youth vote, especially in an environment of slow transition to meaningful productive opportunities whether as an entrepreneur or employee. In fact, the rise of the "People Power" mantra is partly associated with its proponents seeking to tap into the economically disenfranchised youths. The Government, on the other hand, has adopted a plethora of initiatives aimed at tapping into the youth vote. These among others include: 1) increasing the employability of youths through strengthening vocational and technical education to ensure that skills development is consistent with labour market skill requirements; and 2) availing seed capital through for example the Youth Livelihood Fund.

The importance of youths in championing the future direction of a nation cannot be overstated. Indeed, the recent protests in Hong Kong which morphed from anti-extradition to China to demands for more democratic rights have been championed by youths. As such as we move towards the 2021 general elections, government ought to identify more solutions that can keep the youths economically productive. Otherwise government would have no option but to invest in more men and women in uniform not to mention tear gas, in order to curtail the risks of civil disobedience and crime. This article therefore seeks to contribute to the debate about youth productive economic engagement through government pro-actively supporting clustering smallholder farming with the rationale of enabling agro-industrialisation. This is something similar to the agricultural park model of China which has produced phenomenal results.

While I am aware that clustering smallholder farming towards agro-industrialisation is not a short-term initiative; however, it is one of the most viable ways of enabling the linkage between the farm and agro-processing with economy-wide effects. This is especially so given that arable land in Uganda is highly fragmented to support large scale commercial agriculture and by extension agro-processing with economy-wide effects. In that regard, clustering small scale agriculture production is the nuclear option available to enable agro-processing.

The success of clustered smallholder farming is hinged on farmers being induced to produce for a processing facility. This guarantees a market for their produce while at the same time the processing facility would incur reduced costs in searching for and transporting agricultural raw materials.

A case in point is the Soroti Fruit Factory, while it is a flagship initiative aimed at tapping into the citrus and mango production in Teso region in the absence clustered fruit small scale farming this complicates the supply mechanism of raw materials especially where large scale fruit farming is non-existent. For such a factory to work 24/7, there must be consistent and planned supply of raw materials. As it is however, it will be cumbersome for the fruit factory to survive without an aggregator. The aggregator would source for fruits on behalf of Soroti Fruit Factory from a multitude of sparsely distributed small scale fruit farmers. This introduces an additional cost in the supply chain of fruits as the aggregator must be paid a margin.

The rather feasible alternative would be for government to induce clustered smallholder fruit farming in the Teso region as an alternative to large scale fruit farming. This means having various smallholder farmers in Teso embarking on fruit farming so that aggregately there is sufficient fruit grown and produced to support the Soroti Fruit Factory. Even if it means every household engaging in fruit farming by way of by-law; so be it.

This would call for mass engagement of all the leadership and opinion leaders within Teso region so that they can buy into the idea. Thereafter these can act as foot soldiers across all media houses, places of worship and of course any other public gatherings explaining the new approach. Furthermore, there ought to be a well-designed extension service system, inputs supply, fruit purchase and products marketing system. Extension services ensure that farmers are established, registered, guided on appropriate agronomical practices that ensure optimal yields, and the right post harvest handling practices that ensure minimum losses. Well designed input supply systems implies that seedlings, fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides are in qualities and quantities affordable by smallholder farmers. Better still, these should be supplied in a timely manner. Above all the farmers are price sensitive, as such a fairly designed pricing framework would incentivize more land being used for fruit farming leading to an increase in fruit supply.

However, it is imperative that as fruit supply increases, the factory should be in a position to enhance its production capacity otherwise fruit prices are likely to collapse discouraging farmers from growing more fruits. Furthermore, to sustain the competitiveness of fruit farming, research must be undertaken to improve the extent to which fruits production is amenable to the changing production conditions as a result of climate change.

Each of the farmers needs to be registered and closely monitored by the factory. This is now easy, if a factory chooses to utilize information technology applications. This is aimed at regularly tracking developments at the farm, quality and quantity of yield from each household. This would ensure ease of availing targeted interventions which should include irrigation, new technology and working capital. Also registration of farmers would ensure ease of availing crop insurance at least against natural disasters such as drought. Such insurance could be priced in the price that accrues to the fruit farmer. Government could provide a subsidy for starters.

In my view if such a production chain is replicated across the country, for a selected agricultural product per zone, then we would be able to fairly accommodate the youths in an economic participation space that demands for services as opposed to services growing without production that demands for them. This is something akin to the Chinese agricultural parks.

It is one of the ways in which we can stop the boda boda economy from chocking Uganda's economy, as the youths run away from production related activities such as commercial agriculture in search of "easier" life in urban centers to ride boda bodas. Most importantly it's a cheaper alternative compared to the cost of beefing up the number of men and women in uniform alongside teargas to abate the likelihood of disgruntled youths engaging in civil disobedience and crime.

The writer is a senior lecturer at the School of Economics of Makerere University Kampala