Former Agricultural Ministry Boss Victoria Ssekitoleko has lashed out at government over it’s continued under funding of the Agricultural sector and yet it’s the backbone of Uganda’s economy. Ssekitoleko who was at the speaking at the EAC AGRICULTURE BUDGET SUMMIT under the theme:
WALKING THE TALK: Increasing Government Investment In Agricultural Sector And Empowering Small Holder Women Farmers For Shared Growth And Development Towards Agenda 2063 advised farmers to wake up and avoid lamenting on the small budget that is allocated to the Agricultural sector and instead focus on Agribusiness where the opportunities are immense.
“It’s too late for the budget to be increased. You (farmers) need to wake up and start thinking outside the box because there is no commitment from government to invest in Agriculture” Ssekitoleko stated.
“You need to start looking at leakages to make the sector more attractive to the youth instead of crying out at ‘Government Ettuyabbe’ because the population is growing rapidly” she added.
National Farmers Federation Chairman Charles Ogwang also faulted government over it’s continued under funding of the Agricultural sector.
“Ugandans especially farmers no longer care about the budget because it doesn’t address their concerns. Many of the farmers lack extension services and improved seed variety” Ogwang noted.
However, it is ironic that EAC states have consistently allocated less than 10% of their total budget to the sector that employs 80% of the total workforce and contributes 30% to the block’s gross domestic product (GDP).
Judging from the EAC partner states’ budgetary review report for 2014/2015 fiscal year conducted by the Eastern Africa Farmers Federation (EAFF), a lot needs to be done across the region if the two declarations (Maputo 2003 and Malabo 2014) are to be beneficial. EAFF is a regional farmer organisation with members in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea and South Sudan, representing more than 20 million smallholder farmers.
The EAFF report recommends that the partner states review their budgetary allocations to the sector to ensure agriculture is safeguarded and improved. Overall, at 7.2%, Tanzania allocated the biggest chunk of its absolute expenditure to agriculture followed by Uganda at 6.5%, Rwanda ranked third with 6.2% and Kenya lagged behind in fourth place with a little over half the promised amount, allocating only 5.8%.
According to the report, Uganda increased the agriculture sector budget from sh382.7b to shs440.7b.
Stephen Muchiri the Executive Director of East African Farmers Federation emphasizes the need to adopt a more sustainable approach to food security by shifting to irrigation-driven farming and increase the budgetary allocation towards irrigation farming. Use of outdated technology in agricultural production, should be discarded and modern science embraced instead.
Mechanisation and use of information and communication technology should be introduced to boost production even for small scale farmers. In addition, farmers should be equipped with the right knowhow as they tackle crop and other related diseases.
More attention should be directed towards reducing pre and post-harvest losses currently accounting for 60% of the total farm losses.
