Only agriculture will uplift Africa

32
Only agriculture will uplift Africa
Only agriculture will uplift Africa

Africa-Press – Uganda. Some countries in the world are rich and highly developed because for long periods in their history they committed big crimes.

Many of them sent bands of outlaws and heartless people to Africa to capture human beings, chain them, and take them away to sell them like animals. Wherever they were sold, black people were forced to work without pay in plantations and mines and other forms of backbreaking labour.

Many developed countries forcefully took over territories that were never their native lands and looted minerals and other resources in what was referred to as colonialism.

Some rich countries are the result of forceful occupation by people who crossed oceans to subdue and exterminate original natives of the lands which they occupy today.

African countries cannot and are not in position to engage in such crimes now. For us any form of economic development is tied to agricultural development.

It must be the reason that the Maputo Declaration, the Abuja Declaration, and the Malabo Declaration emphasised increased investment in agriculture. Anyway, we badly need food for our fast growing population which has to be obtained by farming.

We have to produce our own raw materials for industrialisation. Our grandparents were shipped across oceans to work in cotton, sugarcane and wheat plantations to develop industries in those countries.

We have to engage in similar agricultural activities here for us to develop our own industries. Africa is urbanising quite fast and there has to be a section of our population to produce food for the urban dwellers.

To get foreign exchange for importing tractors and machinery for factories – capital goods — we must sell such crops as coffee, cotton, cocoa, and vanilla among others. We must sell livestock products such as milk and skins, much as we will need them as raw materials in our own industries.

We hardly have any other source of exports and raw materials outside agriculture. The struggle will require a lot of hard work by the farmers to send their children to school to acquire the requisite skills needed for our country’s industrial development. When farmers’ incomes grow and bank savings rise and tax collection improves there will be sufficient money for development and lending out to large scale entrepreneurs.

Mr Michael Ssali is a veteran journalist,

For More News And Analysis About Uganda Follow Africa-Press

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here