By Sadab Kitatta Kaaya
Government has set aside Shs 54bn to purchase early-maturing seeds for farmers this season in response to famine that has ravaged different parts of the country.
According to the minister of agriculture Vincent Bamulangaki Ssempijja, the money is part of the additional funding that the ministry has received to increase food production in the country.
Ssempijja was speaking at a two-day agriculture sector strategic plan meeting at Sheraton hotel last week on the domestication of the Malabo declaration on accelerated agricultural growth and transformation for shared prosperity and improved livelihoods.
The declaration was signed by African heads of state in the Equatorial Guinea capital, Malabo, during the 23rd ordinary session of the African Union (AU) in 2014.
While African presidents committed to increase agricultural funding with hope of ending hunger by 2025, there is hardly anything to write home on Uganda’s part.
“The [agriculture] sector acts as a major source of livelihood for the majority of the population of Uganda…,” Ssempijja said.
Due to changing climatic patterns, agricultural productivity has gone down with a reported huge crop failure of the maize crop across the country last season.
At least ten million Uganda are at risk of starvation after their crops failed in the past couple of seasons due to drought.
The current rains are expected to last till June, a period that government hopes will be sufficient for production of enough food to feed the country through to the next planting season.
“We have also got additional funding of Shs 67bn under the water for production component in the ministry of water and environment which we intend to use
for construction of irrigation systems so that the farmers can be able to grow crops even outside the rain seasons,” Ssempijja said.
On the sidelines of the meeting, Ssempijja told The Observer that his ministry intended to invoke the Plant Variety Protection Act to guard farmers against fake seeds, pesticides and fertilizers.
This is after farmers across the country complained of non-germinating seeds distributed under Operation Wealth Creation (OWC).