Why do Ugandans starve when the skies dry up?

Gone to waste? Mr Ali Ssenabulya, a farmer at Gayaza village in Masaka District, in his coffee plantation which has been affected by the dry spell. PHOTO BY MOSES MUWULYA

When State minister for Agriculture Christopher Kibanzanga revealed on November 3 that Ugandans in more than 45 districts were starving, for people in Isingiro District, this was merely repeating what was established long ago.

Mr Macarius Kyomya, a resident of Kyanyanda village in Bukanga County, Isingiro District says the minister’s pronouncement did not say anything new.

Famine has ravaged the western Uganda district for months following the long dry spells that failed crop harvests in the two rainy seasons. Thus Mr Kibanzanga’s revelation, according to Mr Kyomya, only served to highlight their plight and eventual emergency food aid.

“Government took long to come to our rescue,” says Kyomya, who has been growing and selling matooke on a large scale but his plantation is now scorched by the sun. He lamented that if the government had responded swiftly, there would be no death resulting from hunger.

In early October, some deaths were reported in Isingiro due to malnutrition and hunger.
“They gave us food [later in emergency aid] but it was very little. We got two kilogrammes of posho (maize floor) and two mugs of beans each,” Kyomya told Daily Monitor.

Mr Kyomya is part of an estimated 1.3 million Ugandans who were, according to Mr Kibanzanga, in need of emergency food aid by November 3.
Similar reports from semi-arid Karamoja sub-region also indicate that some people are feeding on leaves of wild plants.

As of now, the number of starving people, could have increased, according to Disaster Preparedness State minister Musa Ecweru. But he could not avail the figures to back up his projection. He said he was in the field “sensitising” people how to survive the hunger.

“What is clear is that the situation is bad and getting worse in the next months,” ç says. “But our first target is to distribute food to vulnerable groups like child-headed families, the sick and the elderly.”

The most affected families are those whose breadwinners are living with HIV/AIDS which requires proper feeding before taking the daily antiviral medicines. Without proper nutrition, Mr Mr Ecweru says, HIV positive persons have told him it has proved hard to adhere to their daily drug prescriptions.

“We are confronted by a reality of people living with HIV/AIDs but cannot take their medicine without enough food. The situation is bad,” Mr Ecweru adds.

He says President Museveni has directed the ministry for disaster management to do everything possible to save the starving people. “Now we have been sent across the country in teams to sensitise people how to manage the little food available and how to utilise the prevailing rains to plant early-maturing crops,” says Ecweru.

He heads the “sensitization” team in Teso, which is one of the most hit areas and is receiving emergency food relief from the government.
Ecweru says schools in the said areas will have difficulties opening in the next academic year as they will not have enough food to feed the students.

Minister Kibanzanga blames the hunger on drought. He says 65 per cent of the people in Karamoja receive one meal or half a meal a day, contrary to the recommended three meals.

Some 35 per cent of people in the districts in Teso, some of which border Karamoja, are also said to be facing hunger just like their counterparts in Karamoja. The most vulnerable districts of Teso are Katakwi, Amuria, Kumi, Bukedea, and parts of Serere and Kaberamaido.

Mr Kibanzanga says 50 per cent of the people in Koboko, Yumbe, Moyo, Maracha, Arua, Zombo, Nebbi, Adjumani, Amuru, Nyoya, Gulu, Pader, Lamwo, Kitgum, Agago, Soroti, Ngora, Amolatar, Pallisa, Butaleja, Rakai, Isingiro and Tororo get one meal a day.

He named Oyam, Apac, Kiryandongo, Masindi, Bulisa, Kyankwanzi, Nakaseke, Kiboga, Mubende, Luwero, Kyegegwa, Sembabule, Kiruhura, Lwengo, Ntugamo, Kamuli and Kibuuku as districts he described to have “a minimal phase” of food insecurity, meaning that people in these places can still afford all meals though food stocks are running low.

However it’s not all doom and gloom. There are districts which, despite the drought, are classified as food secure. They include Kisoro, Kabale, Kanungu, Rukungiri, Mitooma, Bushenyi, Rubirizi, Ibanda, Kasese, Kabarole, Bundibugyo, Kyenjojo, Ntoroko, Kibaale, Hoima, Masaka, Lyantonde, Kalungu, Butambala, Mityana, Wakiso, Gomba, Luuka, Iganga, Buikwe, Mukono, Kayunga, Buyende, Kampala, Jinja, Mayuge, Bugiri, Busia, Namayingo, Buvuma and Kalangala.

However Minister Kibanzanga cautioned: “… there is fear if individuals and families do not manage the available food stocks at household level well, the situation can quickly deteriorate to an emergency within the next two months” even in the considered food-secure districts.

Interventions
The government has since last month handed out an unspecified amount of food, mainly beans and maize flour, to hunger-stricken families in Teso and some parts of central Uganda and Isingiro District in the western region.

During the same period, the opposition Forum for Democratic Change party also rolled out a programme of their own, ferrying two tonnes of maize flour to Isingiro as emergency food relief.

The FDC spokesperson Ibrahim Ssemujju later said the party would help the hunger-stricken people with food “as it comes”.

About 1.3 million are going hungry countrywide and the number was projected to increase by end of last month and feeding such an increasing large number of starving people on relief food appears unsustainable.

Mr Emmanuel Sunday, the secretary general of Uganda National Farmers Federation (UNFFE), a non-governmental farmers’ organisation, says feeding such a huge number of hungry Ugandans on relief food points to the government’s failure to set right priorities in agriculture transformation.

Mr Sunday says government must pick the lessons why the hunger has happened like in “Isingiro which has been a food basket” for the country and ensure there is no repeat of the same situation in future.

“For the last 30 years apart from areas that experienced war [northern Uganda] and Karamoja [with semi –arid climate], there have never been situations like this where government aids people with food,” Mr Sunday says.

He said hunger is prevalent because of changing weather conditions and government must start preparing for these adverse changes now.

Mr Sunday says the government must bring water to the people to allow irrigation, even if it requires “diverting the Shs500bn given to National Agricultural Advisory Services” to this cause.

“It does not make sense for NAADS to give out seeds to farmers which will wither (because of lack of water). The best (way) is to support them with irrigation. Donating seeds can come later,” Mr Sunday says.

Naads, in conjuntion with the army-led Operation Wealth Creation, provides free farm inputs including seeds, heifers, and extension services to farmers.

The initiatives are meant to ensure food security and alleviate poverty at household level through planting high yielding seeds or seedlings and rearing quality breeds of livestock.

Mr Okaasai Opolot, the director for Crop Resources in the Ministry of Agriculture, admits that the government is constrained as far as feeding the hungry is concerned.

“The idea is to push you [for a limited time] for self-reliance. You have to do something about your situation,” Mr Opolot says.

The challenge that is exacerbating the food crisis, Mr Opolot says, is the “attractive prices” of the little available harvest which entices farmers to sell off the meagre food reserves at their disposable under hope that the government will help them out if the situation worsens.

“Some are selling potatoes in Teso hoping that the government will aid them. They should not do this. If a family is given 10 kilogrammes of posho (maize flour) for a month, is that enough?” Mr Opolot wonders.

He says in the immediate term there should be improved weather forecasting to ensure precision in telling the rain or drought patterns ahead to enable farmers and government plan appropriately.

But in the longer term, he says, the government should embark on the systemic handicaps to agriculture by enabling irrigation through building irrigation schemes.

Mr Festus Luboyera, the Uganda National Meteorology Authority (Unma) executive director, however, insists they have been providing accurate weather forecasts in the last two years.

Dr Julius Gatune of the African Center for Economic Transformation (Acet) says there are more options that should be embraced such as adopting drought-resistant crops to counter drought.

“You cannot neglect millet and sorghum in this changing weather and expect people to have food when there is drought,” Dr Gatune reasons.

He says the government should embrace these two crops not just because of their capacity to withstand drought, but also because “they are highly nutritious”.

Mr Opolot, however, says sorghum and millet are labour-intensive and requires a lot of hands which may not be available.
“We are focusing on perennial crops such as coffee, tea, mangoes but farmers can have an acre of millet or sorghum for food security,” Mr Opolot says.

He recommended crops like maize which have many uses as it can be turned into “alcohol, ethanol and animal feeds” rather than millet and sorghum which have limited uses.

Dr Gatune disagrees with this reasoning. He says there has been value addition on sorghum and millet since 2003 and this has multiplied their uses. He says Makerere University, partnering with Acet, have innovated ways of adding value to sorghum and millet.

As a result, products like edible ice, cream cones, sorghum breakfast flakes, and puffed sorghum snacks have been made from the two crops and the products are now on the market.

There has been debate for years that farmers should have capacity to store food during bumber harvests to insure against hunger during drought or times of scarcity.

Mr Chris Kaijuka, the chairman of Grain Council of Uganda, proposes that the government enters into a public-private partnership to construct silos across the country.

“Silos would ensure that surplus food is stored and let in the market during scarcity. This would ensure price stability but also food supply when a certain season is bad,” Kaijuka says.

A study done by the Uganda Cooperative Alliance (UCA) and UNFFE in 2014 indicated that Ugandan farmers lose up to Shs16b in post-harvest losses annually, translating into almost 30 per cent of their harvests.

If the farmers had been enabled to produce more food by availing water for irrigation, planting crops that can withstand drought conditions and storing excess food during bumper harvests, the current dire food situation would have been avoided.

Other avenues
Dr Julius Gatune of the African Center for Economic Transformation (Acet) says there are more options that should be embraced such as adopting drought-resistant crops to counter drought.

“You cannot neglect millet and sorghum in this changing weather and expect people to have food when there is drought,” Dr Gatune reasons.

He says the government should embrace these two crops not just because of their capacity to withstand drought, but also because “they are highly nutritious”.

Mr Opolot, however, says sorghum and millet are labour-intensive and requires a lot of hands which may not be available.

“We are focusing on perennial crops such as coffee, tea, mangoes but farmers can have an acre of millet or sorghum for food security,” Mr Opolot says.

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