The Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries has denied that the hazardous pesticides banned elsewhere are allowed into Uganda and used on farms. This follows bitter responses by health and agriculture scientists to an opinion by Prof Maurice Ogenga Latigo that the issue of the use of chemicals on farm pests and weeds and in households was being overhyped.
In his article published in the media last week, Latigo said the targeted chemical insecticides and herbicides were being used in other countries. Calling him dishonest, other experts then urged the government to ban the importation and use of any substance dubbed hazardous by expert research.
They said that as Uganda prepares to host the continental summit on agriculture this week, it should come clean on banned agro-inputs. Now, Stephen Tibaijuka Byantware, the Commissioner of Crop Protection has said the only chemicals on the Ugandan market are those that have been approved globally and nationally.
He said even smuggling them in is difficult because the country now has an Agriculture Police Force on top of a Department of Inspection and Certification dealing with agriculture inputs. “Otherwise, the chemicals allowed into the country are those that have been approved,” Byantware said, adding, “There are no banned products on sale in Uganda. You cannot find DDT or Endosulfan in Uganda.”
Uganda will, between January 9 and 11 be host to African Union heads of state for the extraordinary summit on the Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) from January 9 to 11, 2025. CAADP, a strategy adopted by the AU member states in 2003, is aimed at increasing agriculture output and food security through actions like increased resource allocation, value addition, and improved market value chains among others.
Uganda’s performance
On signing up for the continental strategy, the government committed to institute national strategies to meet the CAADP objectives. The country’s progress is monitored and determined by the AU Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD) and the African Union Commission.
Byantware said they are happy with Uganda’s performance which is comparable with most of the other countries, though there is still room for improvement. He said on the most popular commitment of allocating to the agriculture sector at least 10 percent of the annual budget, the country has done great though the resources spread across ministries but targeting agriculture.
Quoting the 2023 CAADP biannual review, the commissioner said Uganda scored 100 percent on the CAADP process completion. This involved the adoption of the first strategy, the development of the country strategy and action plan for the annual reviews, and engaging different stakeholders.
On the index of capacity to generate and use agricultural statistical data and information, Uganda scored 86.4 percent. This was also based on how much Uganda has invested in national agriculture statistics. The other area where Uganda scored 100 percent was on Inclusive Institutionalised Mechanisms for mutual accountability and peer review.
Other areas of excellence included the Agricultural Commodity Value chain, where, working through public-private partnerships it created linkages with smallholder farmers.
This was because of the many programs like micro-scale irrigation, the Uganda Climate-Smart project, the Agriculture Cluster Development project, and the Resilient Pastoral Livelihood project.
However, Byantware said the Farm, Pastoral, and Fisher Household Resilience to Climate program was affected by the prevalent weather-related shocks and disasters experienced, leading to a score of less than 50 percent. He said the African Union Heads of State and Governments Summit will help Uganda and other countries to improve through sharing experiences.
“CAADP gives us an opportunity to share lessons from different member states of the African Union, including best practices for building resilient production systems and feeding the fast-growing population,” he said, adding that Uganda will be the birthplace of a 10-year CAADP Strategy and Action Plan.
–URN
