Uganda: Lessons from the 2022 farming year

With the Covid-19 lamentations still raging within almost the entire population most farmers have had additional issues to blame as big causes of their apparent economic misery. Interestingly there does not seem to be many farmers that got into trouble with the police for going to tend to their gardens throughout all the Covid-19 lockdowns that we were all subjected to.

So what then are the farmers’ major lamentations? One of the major challenges they faced this year was the long drought that destroyed many farming activities almost across the entire country.

Mr Charles Katabalwa,  the Managing Director, SAWA Agricultural Development Company Limited, has told Seeds of Gold that the long drought which struck as early as April was area specific, hitting mainly the cattle corridor in the Central Region as well as other parts of the country including the Karamoja region where entire communities had to rely on emergency food supplies.

Katabalwa believes that the massive destruction of natural forests in Kalangala District is one of the big reasons why most areas along Lake Victoria and generally the Central Region are not getting their due amount of rain as used to be the case in the past.

“To this challenge we have to add the issue of fake inputs like agrochemicals,” he says.

“As their animals starved due to fodder scarcity, lots of farmers used fake acaricides and medications to prevent ticks and other parasites from attacking their animals, which never worked.”

Katabalwa further adds yet another challenge the farmers faced even after the drought was receding which was the rising cost and scarcity of genuine vet drugs, acaricides, pesticides, feeds, herbicides and fertilisers.

Kenyan market

Another problem was the uncertainty of the Kenyan market for Ugandan agricultural products such as maize, eggs, and milk. The new leadership in Kenya has however given some hope to the farmers by removing most of the restrictions their previous government had imposed on the importation of Ugandan agricultural products.

Mr Deo Nuwagaba, Assistant Director of NUCAFE, (National Union of Coffee andAgribusinesses and Financial Enterprises) attributes the current high cost of farm inputs to the global negative effects of Covid-19 which disrupted and blocked many of the channels through which most inputs entered Uganda.

“Some people might not realise this but Covid-19 had a very big negative effect on the supply of important agricultural inputs, particularly those from overseas, which became very difficult to transport due to lockdowns and strict health safety restrictions imposed by the different countries along the route to Uganda,” Nuwagaba explains.

He went ahead to mention that the scarcity led to the high cost of inputs like fertilisers and herbicides and many others that farmers rely upon to attain high yields.

“Remember they had had poor harvests due to the failed rains in the earlier months and they could hardly afford to pay for the inputs. This is a problem that almost cut across all regions of Uganda and we are all worried that it is bound to result in low yields and reduced income for the farmers.”

Increased food prices

Paradoxically the difficult farming circumstances have led to high food prices which should be an incentive to the food producers. A banana grower who used to sell 10 bunches at Shs90,000 in times of plenty to-day sells two bunches at Shs60,000. Robusta Coffee prices hit a record Shs6,500 per kilo of FAQ (kase) in the previous harvest season yet for most farmers, particularly in the Central Region, the coffee harvests were miserable mainly because of drought. They had much less coffee to sell but the little that was available was bought at relatively good prices.

Some analysts like Charles Katabalwa attribute the current rain shortage problems partly to Climate Change which has come with very challenging crop diseases that have no known remedy so far. While many leaders encourage irrigation as one of the most efficient navigations around drought and climate change issues, water sources such as rivers and wetlands are actually drying up.

River Voi in Kenya is reported to be drying up. As a climate change mitigation measure we have a tree planting campaign going on; but without sufficient rainfall even the planted trees cannot grow.

According to Africa.com, the Nile, which runs from Uganda to Egypt, is critical to the survival of millions of Africans. However, a combination of climate change and human overuse is drying up the river, worsening conditions for farmers who are concerned about low harvests and power outages. The Nile basin spans 11 countries, including Tanzania, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Uganda, South Sudan, Ethiopia, and Egypt, where hundreds of heads of state gathered recently for the COP27 climate conference, in Sharm el-Sheikh.

Kenya gives GMO Nod

 The farming year 2022 has also seen the decision by the Kenyan government to lift the ban on growing of Genetically Modified crops. This was a very important and historic decision taken by a country which is also our immediate eastern neighbour and with which we share a porous frontier. We have to look at its reasons for doing so.

According to media reports the decision was taken to allow efficient adoption of approved biotech crops and importation of GM foods. By the same decision Kenya authorized open cultivation and importation of white GMO maize. Almost a year before the country had authorised open cultivation of GMO cotton and cassava. Their aim was to boost general crop production and to improve food security. Growers of GM cotton have far bigger yields with minimal use of pesticides By taking the decision Kenya hoped to join the ranks of such countries as India, Pakistan, Brazil, USA, and China in growing cotton and marketing its products internationally. “

The country is set to revitalise its textile and apparel industry by increasing cotton production tenfold from the current 20,000 bales to more than 200,000 annually,” states the digital “Crop Biotech Update” edition dated April 14, 2021.

The worry now among farmers, scientists, and hundreds of opinion leaders in the region is how to continue with crop production to cope with the fast growing population at this age of climate change that has come with unpredictable extreme weather conditions and incurable crop diseases.

Dr Andrew Kiggundu a researcher in Naro recently told Seeds of Gold, “Part of the solution is for our policy makers to seriously consider the importance of biotechnology as an important strategy in climate change mitigation. Some crop seeds are bred to be quick maturing and drought tolerant. These are the seeds that farmers should go for. Seed technology is vital in sustaining agricultural production in these days of extreme weather conditions.”

Mr Michael Ssali is a veteran journalist. [email protected]