Ugandan fair offers farmers and politicians a chance to talk

There’s a fascinating article in yesterday’s Uganda Monitor about a trade show for the agricultural sector at Jinja. Fascinating for all sorts of reasons, one being the disconnect between what farmers want and what politicians think they want.

President Yoweri Museveni opened the show on July 22 and although his speech dwelt more on politics and complaints against FM stations, he was there to inspire farmers, and acknowledge that they contribute more to the GDP.

However, farmers wanted to hear that the President would reduce the interest rate on Bonna Bagagagawale (sic) funds to 1 percent. That rural roads would be fixed so that produce gets to the markets easily and that taxes on farm implements can be waived and that the government will set up tractor hire services in villages for farmers who cannot buy tractors to hire them.

Animal farmers wanted to hear that the government has banned export of unprocessed food so that by-products used to make animal feeds can be available.

I’m not saying that the farmers should get everything they want, but their demands certainly deserve consideration. Then there’s the question of why farmers want those things.

From Mbarara, Mr Moses Turyamanya learnt that matooke cost between Shs5,000 and Shs20,000 in urban areas. “We brought a lorry full of matooke and it sold out,” he said. “At our farms, we earn between Shs500 and Shs2,000, per bunch of matooke. Now we know that we have to market our produce to get better money.”

But the biggest discovery for Mr Turyamanya is when he learnt that matooke can be processed into food products.

He says a few years ago, Farm Africa exhibited solar driers which can dry matooke and other types of bananas.

“I secured a drier and now we are able to dry matooke and process it into powder, juice, chips and other products,” Mr Turyamanya said. “The government is planning to build a factory so that we can process food and sell to the World Food Programme.”

And there’s a lot more of interest, like a plea from Kabaka Ronald Mutebi for better demonstration farms (and, by extension, better extension services), a joint Uganda-Iran tractor company, and local seed companies. We know farmer field schools are a good thing; this kind of fair sounds like a giant farmer field school and may contain the seed of a politician field school too. If they listen.