Moroto OWC beneficiaries ask for more than livestock, seedlings

When government and the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) administration sought to find a solution to Uganda’s agricultural challenges, it went through a series of trial and error interventions, conceding failure on one front and opening doors to another programme.
The National Agricultural Advisory Services (Naads) programme follows in the footsteps of several such interventions. Like its predecessors, it choked on the script common with Third World institutions - corruption, inefficiency, funding and limited presence on ground.
Naads became President Museveni’s pet subject, receiving his criticism every now and then with calls for a chapter closed finality to the conundrum.

The President then looked through his orchard and picked the choicest fruit, Gen Caleb Akandanwaho (Salim Saleh), his brother and senior military advisor, a man with demonstrable passion for agriculture and economic empowerment programmes, albeit with a not rosy track record of success in them. The two retired four star generals birthed the Operation Wealth Creation (OWC) programme in 2013, an intervention which by the denotative and connotative prowess loaded in its name, meant, “no more games”.

Not business as usual. Even more, it was an operation that would be run by soldiers who follow commands. The President’s frame of mind was one of a programme that would be insulated from the rot and incompetence of yester programmes, and run by kith and kin with support from soldiers whose loyalty was time tested. This, ladies and gentlemen, speeches would go, was finally the magic bullet to Uganda’s agricultural bottlenecks and household income challenges.

In a 2017 policy brief funded by International Growth Centre titled, “Transforming Uganda’s agricultural sector for sustained economic growth,” Nathan Fiala and Derek Apell write: “Agricultural productivity in Uganda is below its potential – constrained by limited use of modern farming methods. Weather is increasingly volatile, yet few farmers use irrigation. Modern seed and fertilisers available on the market are of low quality, and avoided by farmers. Public agricultural support services can rectify these issues, but are understaffed and underfunded.”

To unlock Uganda’s agricultural potential, they proposed, “The government should focus on improving delivery of agricultural support services, facilitating farmers’ access to price and weather information, and promoting market-oriented production, by improving agricultural markets.”

Analyzing the GDP trend from 1982-2015, the researchers found that sectoral GDP trends in the service and the industrial sectors experienced rapid growth from 2000 to 2015, each doubling in value, whereas agriculture grew at an annual rate of 2 per cent. This growth rate was exceeded by the population growth rate (3.3 per cent), raising the threat of food insecurity.

Established in 2014, OWC targets subsistence farmers and aims at commercialisation of agriculture thus creating wealth and reducing poverty, using the military to distribute and supervise delivery of inputs. How successful has this approach been was the subject of an investigative project this writer undertook, focusing on Karamoja; interviewing farmers, local leaders, opinion leaders and central government officials such as agricultural extension services officers.

Karamoja sub-region
Karamoja is a peculiar sub-region of Uganda, essentially a neglected area by successive regimes right from the colonial era, with the infamous joke, ‘we shall not wait for Karamoja to develop’ easily coming off Ugandans’ lips in a swipe at the country’s forgotten north eastern region. The people of Karamoja, mainly composed of the Jie, Matheniko, Tepeth, Pian, Topotha, Bokora and Pokot sub groupings, have a unique socio-economic set up, context and history, as well as climatic conditions. The sub-region is one of those where OWC has rolled out its activities.
In Moroto District, 34-year-old Mike Lokawa, a father of two from Lowei Village in Rupa Sub-county, is a parish chief who received five goats in Financial Year 2016/17, while in 2017/18, he got 10kgs of maize and beans under OWC.

In an interview with this writer, he said he added the goats unto his existing herd on assurance to and condition of OWC that he would cross-breed their goats with his current stock to be able to fetch a little more money than if he had not received anything from the programme. Four of the five goats died.
Lokawa says: “Our climatic conditions here are too harsh for this breed of goats. You can imagine these goats didn’t even produce any kid at all. They got sick within one month and when I called the extension officer to examine what the problem was, he failed to turn up so I opted to use local herbs like we use on our local breed of goats but the following day, they died.”
He adds that due to the heavy rains last year, he lost all the OWC maize and beans that he had planted.

Like Lokawa, 57-year-old Esther Nangiro, a mother of four in the same village, laments that she didn’t harvest anything out of the 10kgs of maize and beans that were given to her under OWC last year due to the heavy rains that flooded her garden and washed away every plant.
Fifty-five-year-old Lokong Lotuk, a mother of two who received 10kgs of maize and beans, didn’t get a chance to see her seedlings sprout as the rains dealt them a blow.
In North Division of Moroto Municipality, Uganda Prisons Service (Moroto Station) found itself receiving animals and poultry from OWC arising from farmers’ failure to manage the programme’s goodies, forcing some farmers to return the same for better management.

John Opolot, the officer-in-charge of the prison facility’s, says most farmers in the district who received farm implements from OWC seemed not ready as they didn’t have the capacity to keep some of the goodies such as pigs and cows distributed to them. Some farmers in the district couldn’t feed the heifers they were given, while others just couldn’t afford their treatment and proper animal care needs. This begs a question on what criteria is followed in giving out these inputs and whether a needs and capacity assessment is undertaken beforehand.
OWC, Opolot advises, should have been a little more careful in its selection of beneficiaries before giving out animals and seedlings and also have a water tight mechanism that deals with attendant challenges like access to veterinary services, education of farmers and price of pesticides.

In a paper, Status of Livestock Water Sources in Karamoja Sub-Region, Swidiq Mugerwa of the National Livestock Resources Research Institute, says: “Karamojong, like other pastoral and agro-pastoral communities, are dependent on natural ecosystem services for the sustenance of their livestock populations. Several water sources and systems have been developed in Karamoja in order to curb frequent water challenges.”

Mugerwa’s research found that there was disproportionate location of water dams for livestock watering with a high concentration of dams in particular areas such as Rupa Sub-county in Moroto District, leading to high grazing intensity and eventually rangeland degradation.

Meanwhile, Nakapiripirit District, he writes, is the most water stressed district in regard to water for livestock, with only four dams in the district. Of the four dams, two are located in Namalu Sub-county, making the larger part of the district unserved. Kobebe and Nakicumet dams in Moroto and Napak districts, respectively are the most important watering sources in the event of an extended dry period.
These two dams similarly have high potentials of providing multiple benefits to the communities by providing water for irrigation and fisheries.

Dam water quality
“Water quality in dams is generally poor due to high sediment loading and siltation orchestrated by direct watering, high grazing intensity around the dam periphery, cutting of trees and soil erosion. At the same time, management practices are poor and if available, are inadequate. All dams are highly exposed to strong prevailing winds thus high evapotranspiration, leading to reduced residence time of water in the dam. We, therefore, find the need for: improved management of water dams, re-align dam development with pasture location sites and grazing sites, build capacity of the community in dam management, sensitise the community on proper watering and strengthen traditional institutions as centres for water management.”
Ordinarily, one would expect that programmes such as OWC that seek to turn around agriculture in places like Karamoja in a bid to reduce household poverty would approach the intervention with due diligence and regard to the unique challenges of the area that Mugerwa captures in his paper.

Dr Sam Elanyu, a veterinarian in Northern Division in Moroto District, says the drought “affects the farmers negatively to a great extent as most of these animals do not get enough feeds and water to enable them have high levels of milk production. If the animal does not get enough water and feeds, the body system cannot allow it produce milk, thus for prolonged drought in the region, farmers are not reaping much from these animals.”

Dr Francis Inangolet, the Moroto District production officer, notes that the animal sector is gradually improving “as the benefiting farmers have at least something to show, but the crop section is in a total mess because most times there is delayed delivery of farm inputs, erratic rains, prolonged drought and delivery of seeds that don’t yield faster.” He also notes that poor attitude of farmers towards crop production has continued to curtail the positive results of OWC.
The mission of OWC is improvement of household incomes for poverty alleviation, wealth creation and overall prosperity of Ugandans through facilitation of sustainable commercial agricultural production.

More needed to be done
If OWC, which has supplied a handful of livestock to a few farmers in Moroto were to achieve its mission, it would have to think and act more broadly beyond distribution of livestock and seedlings, district officials say. To address the root of the challenges to agricultural productivity is a more complex undertaking than merely distributing animals here and there then leaving farmers to deal with the same bottlenecks that have kept them in the poverty cycle for decades on end, on their own.

The overall goal of OWC is enhancing household participation in commercial agricultural production through community mobilisation, equitable and timely distribution of agricultural inputs, and facilitation of agricultural production chains.
In Moroto and indeed the rest of Karamoja, this overall goal, when contrasted with the reality on ground, remains a riddle in the hearts and minds of farmers and the district officials. Beyond the high flying commitments on paper, smart implementation, continues to elude Uganda’s search for agricultural transformation. A drive from Kampala down to Moroto gives a vivid picture of why.

Some cases of success

There are a few positive stories, though, such as that of 29-year-old Margaret Lotee, a mother of two in Katekekile Sub-county, who received an in-calf heifer that has since delivered twice. She says this enabled her increase the income and food security in her home, especially milk that she sells and uses for feeding the family. She notes that this little money from the milk has enabled her enhance her household income and support her children as the norm in Karamoja is that it is the women to take care of families.
Although this has been helpful, there are several challenges that Lotee faces in trying to use the supplies of the programme to enrich her life. She notes that getting veterinary services is such a big challenge to them, especially with freshian cows that require tender care.

She also adds that shortage of water, especially in the dry season, pests and disease and inadequate skills in rearing of freshian cows, have deterred her from benefiting more from the programme. The small scale farmer anticipates that if the extension service is improved and animal drugs are subsidized for the farmers, farmer sensitisation is taken as a priority, as well as availing clean water sources for the animals, the programme will be able change the lives of the Karimojong.
Next to Moroto High School lives 28-year-old Gadiye Epitu, a father of one and graduate of Public Administration from Makerere University.

He is one of the OWC beneficiaries in Moroto, who received one in-calf heifer, which a few months later delivered. He has since expanded his stock by a few more cattle and adopted artificial insemination, which has afforded him cross breed calves. He notes that the animals have ensured food security in his home, especially with milk and adds that he has used the cow waste as fertilisers on his garden where he is practicing vegetable farming, which has enabled him expand his cash flow.
He has faced challenges, including prolonged drought and having to move for a long distance to feed the animals, lack of sustainable water source for the animals, as well as pests and disease.

This special report series was made possible by a story grant from the Open Society Initiative for East Africa (OSIEA).

In our last segment of the series in the Sunday Monitor tomorrow, read about the OWC programme’s missed targets, lessons and way forward