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Farming and the political environment of 2025

Writer: Michael J. Ssali. PHOTO/FILE

What you need to know:

  • Our new leaders should be committed to supporting the development of agricultural technologies. 

We expect to witness a lot of political activities in 2025. Various individuals will be coming out to express their interest in becoming our new leaders in 2026 by seeking to be elected to leadership positions.

As farmers we should take interest in what they are promising to do for the farming sector before casting our vote. It should even be more interesting if many of those aspiring to become our political leaders are farmers themselves.

It is a misconception to just dish out money to poor farmers as loans hoping to help them come out of hunger and poverty without rendering support to agricultural technology innovations that promote farming in today’s times of climate change.

Our country’s agriculture is facing big challenges including pests and crop diseases that are killing farmers’ crops. Many of the pests and diseases have no known chemical cure. Yet our own scientists in National Agricultural Research Organisation (Naro) have arrived at effective solutions to the problem through the use of biotechnology.

However, so far, our current leaders have failed to come up with a mandatory law to support the use of biotechnology in agriculture to effectively overcome the challenges. We should elect only those leaders who really understand that Uganda’s agro-climatic conditions make it a hot spot for crop and animal diseases. Climate Change is already upon us and we can no longer afford to take things lightly.

Our new leaders should be committed to supporting the development of agricultural technologies that protect and guarantee food security and poverty alleviation by enhancing productivity.

Modern biotechnology is one of the major tools used to reduce farmers’ losses due to pests and crop diseases. Farmers can significantly reduce their dependence on herbicides when they use improved seeds produced through modern biotechnology.

They can plant drought tolerant and disease resistant crops. Who wants to eat pesticide contaminated crops all the time? To quote just a few lines from a document of Uganda Biotechnology and Bio-safety Consortium: “GM crops have potential to boost food, fuel and fibre production in Uganda, which will accelerate economic growth and boost foreign exchange earnings, e.g. using bacterial wilt resistant banana. Bio-fortified GM crops can help reduce malnutrition in the country. Biotechnology can minimise losses due to crop diseases now ravaging the country.” 

Michael J Ssali is a veteran journalist.