We Must Feed Our People Or Else…

2 June 2011

editorial

From 14.1 per cent to 16 per cent in two months (April – May), the unrelenting upward swing in inflation must be a priority for incoming Finance Minister Maria Kiwanuka when she reads her first budget speech.

Bank of Uganda is blaming the inflation on high and rising food prices along with external pressures on the cost of fuel. If there is nothing the government can do about the price of petroleum products as it has disingenuously suggested, there is something it can do about food prices. Increased regulation in the production and trading in food commodities must become the new mantra.

Regulation is necessary in the face of spreading food poverty which is affecting our particularly vulnerable rural communities. The food problem is global but compounded locally by partial drought that hit food production, wilt disease which struck the banana crop in parts of central region and the haemorrhage from high-price markets in South Sudan, Kenya, eastern Congo, etc.

Around the world, UK charity Oxfam two days ago published a report indicating that a billion people will go undernourished this year. This report comes close on the heels of a UN warning last week that spikes in food prices could well plunge many countries into unrest. So, as it happened three years ago when food shortages and high prices sparked riots in at least 30 countries, it appears that we again face a potentially destabilising phenomenon.

As budget day beckons, the planners of our economy ought to give strong consideration to how this country’s agricultural resources can be rescued from the current flux. It is important that no mention is made of the Naads programme because while well-intentioned, petty politicking has made nonsense of such schemes.

There are opportunities for redress. Let us start by making fertilisers available at minimum cost to our mostly rural farming households. This should have long term implications for the currently stressed supply chain. It will enhance productivity in an environment where, according to the World Bank, Uganda has one of the highest soil nutrient depletion rates in the world.

Next, we must revisit the aggressive policy on stocking of the past where rural households were compelled to hold food granaries. Strict enforcement should also dampen market price volatility if the government devised simultaneous measures to mitigate the unregulated sale of food products by both small and big farmers.

AllAfrica – All the Time