Be ready for food insecurity over budget cuts in agric sector- CSOs
A farmer in Lwengo District attends to her beans as they dry under the sun in February 2023. Only large-scale farmers and big organisations have secure stores for grain. PHOTO/MICHAEL J SSALI
What you need to know:
- Figures by the CSOs indicate that over 10 million people suffered from acute hunger last year in Uganda which has a population of over 44 million people.
Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) have warned of a massive hunger crisis in Uganda over budget cuts in the agricultural sector marked by under allocation of funding to extension workers in local governments.
The CSOs that include the Civil Society Budget Advocacy Group (CSBAG), Food Rights Alliance (FRA), SEATINI and Center for Health, Human Rights and Development (CEHURD), say that despite the government increasing the agro-industrialization budget by 23 per cent from Shs1.44 billion in FY2022/23 to Shs1.7 billion in the FY2023/24, the cuts observed in funding extension workers in local government will water down all efforts made by government.
The FRA executive director Agnes Kirabo believes that extension workers play a critical role in assisting farmers in implementing programs of government and its development partners.
“I urge the government to fund them adequately to avoid a potential hunger crisis," she told a press conference in Kampala on Sunday.
Figures by the CSOs indicate that over 10 million people suffered from acute hunger last year in Uganda which has a population of over 44 million people.
"Our people must brace for more hunger and the government should be sure of buying more teargas because these young people are now going to be angrier," she observed.
For CSBAG executive director Julius Mukunda, increasing the budget for agro-industrialsation is useless if farmers don’t get the required services from the extension workers.
"We are afraid that we shall see increased production of poor quality agricultural products that will be rejected by markets abroad. We want government to revise its priorities," he said as CSOs gave their perspective on the Shs52 trillion FY2023/24 budget.
Moses Onen, the programs manager at PELUM Uganda said farmers need to be drawn away from indigenous knowledge for better yields.
Meanwhile, SEATINI Uganda’s program manager Herbert Kafeero urged government on agricultural industrialization.
"Even the budget allocated to the agro-industrialization program will not enable the various agencies like the Uganda Export Promotion Board and Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS) to deliver on their mandate which have critical role of ensuring that producers comply with requisite standards," he remarked at the gathering in Kampala.
CSOs also raised alarm on other issues including; the rising public debt, budget cuts on manufacturing program, community mobilization, limited allocation on essential medicines, inconsistency and limited allocation to natural resources which they said the forthcoming budget does not address.
