A Farmer With Useless Tears

On 24 February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine which has constituted the current economic crisis in which the world at large is generally feeling the pinch. This has raised alarms from all categories of people across the world which may sound as a genuine concern.

However, my main point of concern is this post is my poor parents whose entire life is based on farming. In fiscal year 2020/2021, agriculture accounted for about 23.7% of GDP, and 31% of export earnings. The UBOS estimates that about 70% of Uganda's working population is employed in agriculture. These statistics are absolutely amazing to any planner whose aim would be promoting employment among the Uganda’s population since the core area of concern is clearly known to even a lay man.

What is more interesting again is that no human being globally can entirely survive on any other good or product other than goods or products from agriculture sector yet farmers are under looked particularly in Uganda.

What is interesting in Uganda is that everything in Kampala is very expensive including agricultural produce, take an example of maize flour where a kilo now costs UGX 3500. A good bunch of Matooke costs between UGX 20,000-35000 currently. A bar of soap costs UGX 7000. The reason I am given is that the fuel prices have gone high. All these people playing with these prices in Kampala are not producers of agricultural produce but traders and middlemen. Last week I was in Ruhama Ntungamo and bought the biggest bunch of Matooke at UGX 7000. The same was in Mwizi Mbarara. In Namayingo district I bought a kilo of maize grains at UGX 1000.

The pain I have for the farmers is that much as the prices increase with claims of high inflation, he/she remains cheated. Moreover, when he goes to the shop to buy agricultural inputs, the prices are very high with same reason of inflation. This has left me with many questions to ask on the behalf of farmers including myself.

1.???Who influences farmer’s prices? Or can they be helped to influence the prices? Then how?

2.???When does high prices resulting from inflation benefit the farmer?

3.???Who is there to help the farmer fight for his/her rights?

4.???If the farmers stopped producing today, would the world live happily?

5.???When will farmers ever be listened to?

6.???Who cursed the farmer so that in every crisis he/she is the one to suffer most?

7.???For how long have we known the importance of a farmer yet very less is done to help him?

8.???Are we waiting for the food we get from the farmer to remind us that their master is suffering? And when will this happen?

I don’t thwart all the good government programmes in what they call key sectors when drawing budgets but anyway, if I may ask, which key sector is that that can survive without food which comes from the farmers. We need to know that whoever will work in whatever sector you can talk about including security, needs food to live and implement the so called security strategies. Industries need agriculture! Education needs agriculture! Health needs agriculture! Etc.

This tells us how a farmer is a key engine that propels all other sectors to function. Myself, I do farming but I have never seen any agricultural extension work coming to my village yet I hear they are at the sub county and are paid. I always ask myself, what are they paid for? Or who are they serving if not a farmer? At times the lucky few connected farmers who access planting seeds, gets the worst quality. Where does this poor quality come from? In any case, why did we interfere with the traditional seed which was easy to access and manage if we were not ready to support farmers? For the traditional seed, a farmer would replant it as many times as he/she wished but still got some produce. The modern seed will have no harvest if not sprayed or given manure. Where are we heading?