Faridah Kulabako
10 November 2009
The shilling is appreciating against the US dollar but food is scarce and food prices continue to soar abnormally overturning the belief that Uganda is the food basket for the region.
In Eastern Uganda, 80-year old Gideon Bwapale in Amuria District spent two weeks without a solid meal in early September and he wasn't sure he could make it through another week.
"I have only been drinking water. That's what has kept me alive but I don't know if I will survive more days," he said at the time. Business Power could not establish if he made it through his ordeal.
Consumer spending power is the thin line between those who can afford to feed themselves and others like Bwapale who barely have anything to eat.
Since March 2008, Uganda's inflation rate has been in double digits ranging between 11.7 and 14.5 per cent a trend set mainly by serious food shortfalls that have spewed up prices.
Mr Mathias Ssewanyana, the director of macro-economics at Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) says food prices have been rising and now average a high of 26.5 per cent since the first quarter of 2008.
Souring prices
In most Kampala city markets, staple foods such as dried vegetables like beans, fruits and sugar continue to register increase in prices. A bunch of matooke costs Shs20,000, Shs5,000 for a kilogramme of beef, tomatoes at Shs4,500, onions for Shs1,500, sugar costs Shs2,500, milk for Shs2,000 per litre and maize flour at a minimum of Shs1,500 per kilogramme.
Uganda Bureau of Statistics' annual food crops inflation rate for the year ending September 2009 rose to 49.5 per cent from 31.9 per cent in August.
UBOS blamed the increase, then, on reduced supply and high demand for Uganda's food stuffs by her neighbouring countries.
Although blessed with a good distribution of food centres, Uganda, according to a "Hunger Free Scorecard" released last month by Action Aid Uganda, an international aid agency has about eight million people on the verge of hunger after scoring less than 50 per cent on food production performance.
Uganda's own food situation hangs on a bare thread weighed down by the 'responsibility' of being the food basket of the region. Most of the food produced locally is exported - mainly informally - to hunger-stricken Kenya and the lucrative markets of Southern Sudan and DR Congo.
State Minister for Agriculture Henry Bagiire told Business Power that the increase in prices was as a result of increased food demand by neighbouring countries.
"Uganda has the best agricultural soils in the region and we don't want to close our borders to stop food exportation to bring down prices," Mr Bagiire said adding: "It's not good to see our neighbours suffering yet we have fertile soils to produce the food."
The spokesperson of the Uganda Farmers' Federation, Mr Morrison Rwakakamba, attributed the rising food prices to increased food demand coupled with low productivity levels.
The country has suffered low crop yields as a result of climatic change, declining soil nutrients, over-dependence on nature for agricultural production and limited access to quality seeds.
"Forces of demand and supply are still driving the market. Demand for food is high but there is low productivity and supply," he said.
He identified lack of advisory services to farmers, inadequate fertilisers and counterfeit fertilisers on the market as major hindrances to food productivity.
"There are so many fake fertilisers and seeds on market. And these inputs are highly priced above the affordability of an ordinary farmer," he said.
Less than 14 per cent of farmers have access to agricultural advisory services, yet Uganda depends 99 per cent on agriculture.
He, however, said the federation had embarked on agricultural knowledge dissemination through parish chiefs, farmers' shows and seminars to improve agriculture in the country.
He said the federation is also pushing for a food and nutrition bill that will recognise, promote and protect the right to food as a fundamental human right and ensure that food is treated as a national strategic resource.
The country has suffered low crop yields as a result of climatic change, declining soil nutrients, over dependence on nature for agricultural production and limited access quality seeds.
Since the onset of the global economic recession, food prices globally have been rising as speculators resorted to hoarding resulting into a high swing on inflation in agro-based economies like Uganda.
Uganda's annual headline inflation rate for the year ending September 2009 went up sharply to 14.5 per cent from the 12 .6 per cent registered in August 2009.
Uganda's annual inflation rate slowed to 13.3 per cent in October from 14.5 per cent in January. High inflation acts as a disincentive to production especially for agricultural commodities. Computed figures show that the annual food crop inflation rate for the year ending September went up to 49.5 per cent from 31.9 per cent registered in August the highest surge in 15 years.
The post election violence in Kenya and unfavourable climatic changes punctuated by sporadic droughts and floods have also been responsible for the acute food situation.
Interestingly, annual core inflation rate, which excludes food crops fuel, electricity and metered water from Consumer Price Index basket dropped to 9.7 per cent for the year ending September 2009 from 9.9 per cent for the year ended August 2009.
Uganda does not have national granaries to store food but Mr Bagiire said the government is working on a law to compel farmers to have granaries in their homes to store food.
Apart from exporting food to neighbouring countries, some crops, which would have been used for food like cassava, maize, millet and sorghum are instead being used to produce alcohol.
Mr Bagiire said the current heavy rains are expected to hike food prices further as they make roads to the food producing areas inaccessible.
Mr Rwakakamba said the government should modernise agriculture, improve access roads to food producing areas, promote agro-processing and control birthrates if food production in the country is to stabilise.
"The population is growing so fast but productivity has been dwindling," said Mr Rwakakamba adding that transport costs and middlemen are a major contributor to high food prices in the country.
"Middlemen exploit farmers by buying food cheaply and then sell highly because of high demand and on top of shortages, they now give an excuse of high transportation costs," he said.
Global oil prices have clocked above $80 per barrel and is likely to continue rising. A litre of petrol in Uganda costs Shs2,300, diesel Shs1,930 and paraffin Shs1,750.
While addressing the Presidential Investors' Round Table meeting in Kampala last month, President Y.K. Museveni said the government was determined to revolutionalise agriculture through introduction of mega irrigation schemes in mountainous areas and large scale micro-irrigation schemes in flat areas.
"We want to boost agricultural production through transforming Uganda's peasant economy into a commercially diversified economy," said Mr Museveni.
Micro-irrigation schemes use solar pumps to send locally tapped water into gardens.
NAADS
As the country suffers from acute food shortages due to low productivity, a Joint Task Force investigating the National Agricultural and Advisory Services [NAADS] revealed that over Shs80 billion meant to boost agricultural productivity had been misappropriated.
NAADS funds were meant to uplift farmers from abject poverty through increased access to information, knowledge, improved seeds and use of technology for profitable agricultural production.
The Action Aid "Hunger Free Scorecard" report says that some countries with lesser natural resources than Uganda have been able to produce enough food for their population. China, for instance, with an arable land of 9 per cent can feed its 1.3 billion people and provide food for about 20 per cent for the rest of the world.
"Hunger begins with inequality between men and women, and between rich and poor. It grows because of perverse policies that treat food purely as a commodity, not a right. It is because of these policies that most developing countries no longer grow enough food to feed themselves and that their farmers are amongst the hungriest and poorest in the world while the rich world fights growing obesity," the report reads.
China has cut its number of people considered hungry through adopting polices like relative distribution of land, government support to smallholder farmers, investment in rural infrastructure, and building grain reserves. This has also been the case in Ghana and Malawi that ranked 3rd and 5th respectively.
The secret behind Ghana's better performance was its making of food security a national priority backing it with consistent support to smallholder farmers and democratic stable governance. As a low income country, Ghana has made tremendous strides in reducing hunger.
The countries that posted better performance were found to have rejected the conventional market era, retained or reclaimed a central role of the state in agriculture by developing and supporting poor farmers through credit, research and extension, technology, price supports, and input subsidies targeting smallholders.
They have invested in commercial agriculture for export, maintained specific policies to ensure sustained production of staple food, had a relatively equitable distribution of land or introduced land reforms, and all had introduced basic social protection measures.
For 80-year old Gideon Bwapale, may be he didn't survive the hunger, but for millions others who continue to wade through acute shortages of food, good government policies on agricultural production are key to their long term survival.
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