Africa-Press – Uganda. In 2021 we hope to elect leaders that will steward the country for the next five years. In their campaigns most of them are promising to help farmers improve their livelihoods. The big question, however is how serious are they about addressing the hurdles that have hindered agricultural productivity growth rates in our country over the years?
The lowest retail price for beef in the last Christmas season was Shs14,000 per kilogramme. For those of us who were around, with that amount of money about 30 years ago it was possible to buy a cow. A mature tilapia fish today costs around Shs30,000 yet around 1990 that amount of money would purchase sufficient tilapia fish for lunch in a boarding school.
Food prices are going up just as it is getting harder for nearly everyone to get the money to spend on food and other needs. The arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic has not made matters any easier for both food producers in rural areas and food consumers in urban centres.
Another challenge is climate change. Today, the country’s population is about 44 million and the mismatch between the demand for food and food production is getting bigger, which must be the cause for the ever rising food prices. Today we experience hunger and malnutrition in rural areas where food is supposed to be produced. We see shrinking parcels of arable land, smaller overworked gardens, deforestation, soil nutrients deficiency, incurable crop diseases, soil erosion, wetland destruction and water contamination.
The big population has resulted into land fragmentation as more people struggle to get farming space. Yet it is not easy to do gainful agriculture on a small piece of land, especially for people with no agricultural skills and capacity to purchase the necessary inputs such as fertilisers.
We will, therefore, need leaders that will invest more in agricultural research and development. We will need leaders that are ready to value and to adopt agricultural research findings in order to overcome the many farming hurdles we face. We will also need guidance on population control measures.
