Tumwebaze Reveals How MAAIF Plans To Transform Lives Of Farmers

The Minister of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries (MAAIF), Frank Tumwebaze (pictured) has revealed his Ministry’s plans to transform Uganda’s agriculture sector.

Tumwebaze says the Ministry is going to show farmers the meaning of extension services.

 “Extension means a professional agriculture person going to teach a farmer or farmers on how to do agriculture better and increase yields and get more (yields). So, the question is, how do we do it? Are we only going to rely on the district staff only? The three people per sub-county; Vet officer, crop officer, fisheries (if there is a Lake there)?. We will use a multi-pronged approach to deliver knowledge to the farmers. We are going to do farming education, the way you hear URA saying tax education or the way you hear Health say health education. So, we have renamed extension to mean farming education for everybody to understand it. We shall use our extension officers in the district to deliver knowledge on agronomy, on good yield produce, how to achieve them, on post-harvest handling as the whole value chain dictates but because the extension staff are inadequate in the districts, we shall also leverage the media,” Tumwebaze revealed.

He made the remarks during the recently concluded MAAIF retreat at National Leadership Institute (NALI), Kyankwanzi, where  MAAIF and its agencies met to discuss a number of issues affecting the sector.

The Minister acknowledged the role the media plays, noting: “You the media, we have resolved that you are going to be our partners. We shall come to your media houses. We sign partnerships so that we teach, the way you are teaching kids. These pull outs of education – biology, maths. We now also want to have pull outs of agriculture. So, we are going to have partnerships with the media. Not just PR but farming education. We are going to partner with farmers who already know it. For every enterprise, there is a successful farmer somewhere, at a district, at a sub county, even at a parish. So, that successful farmer, we shall partner with him, sign an MOU, designate him or her as an extension centre for others to learn from him. We shall also deliver extension from licensing and regulating private people.”

 From the internal retreat, Tumwebaze said MAAIF  will now seek group approach.

“ We will have dialogue with Ministry of Trade, we will have dialogue with the Private Sector Foundation, we will have dialogue with the farmers’ organizations…. We are here to think, harmonize our thinking, harmonize our plan and also do correct budgeting,” he said.

The Minister added that if the Ministry has correct plans, it will be easy to convince Cabinet/ Finance Ministry and donors to increase funding for the sector.

Climate change

On climate change, Tumwebaze said  sustainable agriculture means involving in extension officers.

“That’s where enterprise selection comes in. That’s where research from NARO comes in. what varieties are drought resistant? What agricultural practices are not of a hazard to the environment? These are the packages that should be contained in our extension. The extension will cover sustainable agriculture.  When you hear of sustainable agriculture, it is that practice which does not deplete the environment. The extension will cover good practices, profitable enterprises, how to handle our harvest and how to market and not be at the mercy of middle men,” he said.

He added: “So, ways like cooperating. The cooperators. You keep hearing people saying government killed cooperatives. Very lazy arguments. How did government kill them? People killed themselves their cooperatives. They never cooperated anymore. Cooperative union, if you don’t cooperate, it’s no more, and why are they not cooperating, because they stopped producing enterprises of common interest. Me, a cattle keeper, how will I cooperate with a coffee farmer? Our products are different because we cooperate to aggregate production volumes. We cooperate to market together. We cooperate to store together. So, we are going really to define these issues and guide people properly and stop politicizing  them.”

Agriculture in wetland, forest reserves

“That’s violation of the ecosystem. We will work with the Ministry of Environment. For example, what can work in wetlands. Maybe fish ponds. We will advise them to carry out what is acceptable within a particular vulnerable ecosystem because agriculture (if you do it today and you get what you want to you don’t sustain it tomorrow, what will the generation after you eat? So, that’s why we talk of sustainable agriculture. It will come through education, it will come through enforcement. So, forestry or protected areas (people can engage in agro forestry). It is also a commercial venture. So, really, it’s a question of guiding people and enforcing the policies,” he said.

The retreat’s theme was to: Think, harmonize and act together for smooth implementation of the a grow industrialization program of NDPIII.