Prolonged dry spell, hunger and drought create anxiety

In his New Year message, President Museveni observed that the long awaited rains had come and people should plant early given that rains were now less predictable. After a long dry spell that lasted until November, some rains fell through the second week of December. During the President’s speech, rains fell all over the country twice, the last rains falling on December 31, 2016.

For a long time in the tropical belt, precipitation is expected at least once every 10 days. Record temperatures are being recorded all over the country. Kampala metro used to have 160 days of tropical thunderstorms per annum and average annual daily temperatures of 24-25C. The southern ring that covers Kalangala recorded 220 days of rain per annum. Gulu in northern Uganda had relatively high temperatures but recorded the highest total rainfall annually. Today temperatures as high as 32-33C are being felt in Kampala and Gulu is in the higher thirties (35C) and above.

For animal and plant life this is a calamity. Even with drought resistant varieties in crops like coffee, the heat stress is obvious. Last year, Operation Wealth Creation recorded losses upwards of 60 per cent in distributed seedlings and 100 per cent loss of heifers they distributed. The current policy promoting irrigation is raw and impractical. Most farmers who can barely afford to water cannot afford to install let alone maintain irrigation. With the ensuing water shortages, operators like NWSC are struggling to maintain pumping pressure. Ground water is an even more sensitive resource that can cause ground collapse if not managed well.

Given that the intensity of dry spells is likely to increase in the coming years, there is an urgent need to devise a new water policy that recognises the fact that agriculture will remain a major economic activity in Uganda for a long time. The policy must devise community water sharing, which will be more important now that irrigation is a major water use. The emphasis must be on mobile technologies to cover as many farmers at the grassroots. The parish which ideally has 7,000 residents or 1,000 homes is an ideal planning unit to get an idea of scale of the problem. Some areas where gravitational flow may work are lucky. Some areas are not so lucky; they need pooling and mechanical or motorised distribution.

The mandate for water development is currently housed in two directorates. The Directorate for Water Resources Management in Entebbe and the Directorate for Water Development in Luzira. It should be made clear whether these will carry the mandate for water irrigation. It may be smarter for the Ministry of Agriculture to have a water unit of its own focused on irrigation. Entebbe is focused on the global picture and ground water management while Luzira is focused on extending piped water.

There are a number of other efforts at combating climate change which have been repeatedly failing. Forest cover is shrinking partly caused by government lacking a policy on cooking fuels. In developing countries like Kenya and Ghana, governments are distributing subsidised stoves that use gas to replace charcoal and firewood. In Uganda, charcoal remains the dominant cooking fuel and its destructive use is continuing unabated. NFA, district and private forests are all under assault by charcoal burners. Government has been easy to shut one eye levying revenue from charcoal that moves through local government revenue points. In other words, government is abating both an illegality and an abhorrent act. The soil where charcoal is burnt is also permanently lost to agriculture!

The shrinking basket should finally be an incentive to wake up local governments to set up food storage centres to buy excess food in the dry season. Images of hungry and helpless Ugandans who can barely afford to get what to eat are shameful and heart rending. We cannot afford to see these images again, 30 years after the last great famine in 1984-1985.
Mr Ssemogerere is an Attorney-at-Law and an Advocate. [email protected]