President Yoweri Museveni has listed a number of agribusiness enterprises that will help 68% of Uganda’s population get out of subsistence farming and join the money economy.
In his commentary on his just concluded wealth creation countrywide tour, Museveni says leaders should help the 68% of Ugandans who are still stuck in the tradition of only producing for the stomach.
“It is the failure of the leaders that live near these people, to tell them how to improve their lives by going commercial in their production efforts,” Museveni says.
He says for somebody of four acres or less, the following activities are recommended:
- Coffee;
- Fruits (oranges, mangoes, pineapples, grapes, apples, straw-berries);
- Food-crops;
- Pasture for dairy;
- Poultry farming for eggs in the backyard;
- Piggery in the backyard;
- Fish-farming in the periphery of the wetlands
(emiiga), but not in the centre of the wetlands.
“Therefore, the aim of my recent campaign is to wake up the sleeping 68% portion of our homesteads to join the transformation efforts. If each of the 8million homesteads of Uganda earned Shs.20million per year, that effort would add an extra US$44bn to our economy. The size of the economy would, therefore, jump to US$74bn by the foreign exchange rate method,” the President says.
How do the 68% move forward, following the present campaign?
Museveni’s answer is that “there are already four funds for Wealth and Job creation. These are: the Operation Wealth Creation (OWC) Fund; the Women Fund; the Youth Fund; the Micro-finance fund and the Innovation Fund. This is a total of Shs437.2bn. This money has been there every year, in some cases, even since the year 2001 as NAADS money. The complaints are now that, this money is given to the ones “who already have”. The have-nots do not get. It is the “haves” that access this support. This cannot be a big problem. The big issue is that the money is there. If the routes through which it is passing have a problem, then we shall get better routes.”
