KEY AGRICULTURAL AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT ISSUES IN UGANDA

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KEY AGRICULTURAL AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT ISSUES IN
UGANDA

• BY
• Joseph K Mukiibi and Namazzi Juliet Kiwuwa

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PLAN FOR MODERNISATION OF AGRICULTURE (PMA)

• VISION
• Poverty eradication through a profitable,
  competitive, sustainable and dynamic agricultural
  and ago-industrial sector

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PMA

• Pillars
• Agricultural research
• Advisory services
• Marketing and agro-processing
• Rural finance
• Agricultural education
• Supportive infrastructure
• Natural resource management

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AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH

• Concerns
• NARS reform process slow
• Under-funding declining budgets
• Historically heavy dependency on donor funding
• Under- staffing
• Over-aged staff
• Poor gender staff balance
• Private sector participation insignificant

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AGRIC RESEARCH Cont

• Important areas under-researched
  Socio-economics, agricultural engineering, food
  science and technology, biotechnology
• Cross cutting issues insufficiently addressed
  Gender mainstreaming, ME, impact assessment,
  HIV/AIDS
• Unbalanced geographical coverage by network of
  research stations
• Ill defined interface between research and
  advisory services

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ADVISORY SERVICES

• Concerns
• Insufficient attention paid to change management
  (de-layering?)
• NAADS roll-out has not met expectations
• Building capacities of PSPs
• Building capacities of farmers

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ADVISORY SERVICES Cont

• Heavy dependence on donor funding (80)
• High cost of implementing NAADS?
• Misapplication of funds?
• Insufficient attention to cross cutting issues
  ME, NRM, impact assessment, HIV/AIDS
• Questionable assumptions Poor farmers procuring
  extension services demand driven extension
  services

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AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION

• Concerns
• Teaching of agriculture in schools does not
  necessarily result in liking or appreciating
  farming as an occupation
• Adult literacy has limitations
• College education in agriculture produces good
  teachers, research and extension agents but not
  necessarily good farmers
• Paucity of farmer training institutions

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MARKETING AND AGRO-PROCESSING

• The most serious constraints to the modernisation
  of agriculture
• Concerns
• Lack of a long range industrialisation policy
• Delay in the formulation and implementation of
  MAPS
• Lack of interest by private sector
• Low capacity at UIRI and universities
• Lack of demonstration industrial pilot plants
• Lack of venture capital

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RURAL FINANCE

• Unavailability of rural finance is easily the 2nd
  most important constraint to the modernisation of
  agriculture
• Concerns
• Inadequate access to credit
• MFIs and commercial banks charge high interest
  rates
• Very few credit worthy farmer institutions since
  the demise of cooperatives
• Is there justification for an agricultural bank?

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NRM AND INFRASTRUCTURE

• Concerns
• Almost no attention paid to deforestation and the
  need for large scale afforestation programmes
• Total lack of community commitment to
  construction or maintenance of feeder roads

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OVER-ARCHING ISSUES

• Coordination of a multi-sectoral poses a serious
  challenge. Is there need to rethink lead roles?
• What does modernisation really mean?
• What does it take to modernise? Time scale, human
  resources, financial resources, political will

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OVER-ARCHING ISSUES Cont

• Do we have a land use policy favourable to
  modern agriculture? Unorganised settlements and
  holdings! Nomadism.
• Land tenure freehold, mailo, customary, bibanja?
• Subsidies Can Agriculture be really
  subsidy-free?
• Institutional reforms sudden, random, sweeping,
  and repetitive? At what cost?