Dear Ugandans,
I have always had problems understanding the reason behind some of the elements under ‘Plan for Modernization of Agriculture’[PMA]. I think a lot under PMA constitute glaring contradictions in the government’s PEAP policy, informing many of it’s budgetary allocations. I would imagine that given the continuing land fragmentation that we have in most parts of the country, the PMA components dealing with actual cultivation of crops/rearing of livestock should have concentrated on intensive methods of agriculture (on small plots) not plantation agriculture.
Extensive Plantation agriculture and the infrastructure and technology that go with it cannot meaningfully be done in a country where the countryside is full of peasants all eking out a living from land.
But I also think a lot of these things will require more carefully thought-out government planning. I remember there was a time when it was fashionable for all politicians and civil servants to advise young men/women looking for employment in towns to go back to land (I continue to hear that up to this day even on the ‘UAH’ forum). I still think that was misguided thinking. These people were leaving rural life to begin wage labour in urban centres, a step in societal transformation. Advising somebody to go back to land may be done individually depending on the circumstances but not made to appear as if it is the government opinion/policy for all school leavers searching for jobs. Many young people ended up becoming peasants even though they could have been encouraged to try other occupations.
The point is that we should instead, more than before, encourage urbanisation and not see it as a bad trend. All the trading centres cropping up ought to be immediately surveyed and planned for basic services to serve as nuclei of future metropolis. Provision of government or any services like electricity, water or vaccines can be several hundred times cheaper and affordable if people were living in more concentrated settlements, not everywhere throughout the country side. Urbanisation is a sure way of freeing land for commercial agriculture, including forestry. Peasants living in small towns can choose to go and work on these farms or find something else to do in the urban centres. Within two to three generations you would not have many typical peasants in the country.
We shall take more that 200 years to reach the structural transformation turning point (one where there is a shift from living off peasant agriculture to survival on wage labour and services)if no bold and unpopular step is taken now regarding land reform.
I think shying away from carrying out a major/drastic land reform is part of the reason Uganda may be moving in circles in very many areas including politics (trapped in a revolving door as some people would put it).
Ogwanga Sam.
Residing in USA
