Source: The Monitor

22 August 2009 - With famine still raging on, analysts warn that the government needs to work out a plan on how to let farmers know about the predicted weather if the population is to be assured of constant food supply. Saturday Monitor's Jenny Vaughan explores the idea:



Ms Victoria Kakoko Ssebagereka has lost her entire crop. In July she planted pineapples, vanilla, maize and beans but the rains never came and neither did the harvest. Her cows and goats are emaciated. "I have never seen my animals looking as horrible as they do now," she says.



Ms Ssebagereka has been cultivating on her 32 acres of land in Kayunga for more than two decades and she has never experienced such a devastating spell of drought.



She is one of nearly four million Ugandans who have been rattled by this year's drought that is now causing a food shortage in an estimated 52 districts across the country leaving at least 40 people dead due to famine-rellated illnesses.



Once upon a time, farmers were well organised into cooperatives, well informed about harvesting and well equipped for food shortages because storing excess food was mandatory.



But today productivity suffers because money is pumped into emergency relief instead of long-term, preventative solutions. So farmers are ill-informed and ill-prepared to cope with weather calamities when they hit.



Today, the National Environmental Management Authority (Nema) estimates that only 13 per cent of farmers in the country are informed yet 77 per cent of Ugandans rely on farming as their main source of income.



Coping with climate change



Mr Stephen Magezi, the commissioner of the Meteorology Department, says the food crisis is caused by climate change, throwing traditional farming systems out of whack.



"It's quite normal to have weather variations," he says. "But now what is happening is these variations are becoming more frequent and severe." He says from 1910 to 1970 the country faced about three serious droughts. In the period since 1970, Ugandans have suffered eight.



Because erratic weather is the norm, the country's agricultural system has to be transformed, says Mr Morrison Rwakakamba, the manager of policy research and advocacy at the Uganda National Farmers Federation (UNFFE).



"We need to shift away from chance-based and nature-based agricultural systems and go to more scientific and predictable agricultural systems," he says.



Akuli MP Livingston Okello-Okello is witnessing the ravages of the famine caused by climate change unfold in the north.



"People have nothing to eat," he says, exasperated. "They are emaciated, they are very thin."



People are picking wild fruit just to survive. Food relief arrived in June, but the two lorries of goods did not come close to feeding the population of about 300,000, he says.



The government said it was targeting only the most vulnerable groups, but Mr Okello-Okello says that everyone is vulnerable since the dry spell has dragged on since February.



Knowledge is power



In the past, farmers could learn about the benefit of planting drought-resistant cassava or quick-yielding cowpeas through farmers' cooperatives, local information centres and government extension workers.



But this network fell apart when President Museveni took the reigns of power, says Mr Yonasani Kanyomozi, the national chairman of the Uganda People's Congress.



"The cooperatives went in hibernation," says Mr Kanyomozi, adding: "So the ordinary peasant has no reference point in the system. He is left to fend for himself."



Now, most farmers rely on the state for agricultural and climate change knowledge.



Weather alerts should reach farmers through the Meteorology Department, but Mr Magezi says his office is cash strapped. Their annual budget is $700,000 and he says most of it is swallowed up by the aviation wing.



"Mr Museveni wants to fly well, so we need to make sure he can fly well," Mr Magezi says. "Farmers get little."



The Plan for Modernisation of Agriculture (PMA) hands out 5,000 copies of their bulletin every year to local politicians, members of parliament, cabinet ministers and civil society organisations.



The National Agricultural Advisory Services (Naads) circulates information through a single extension worker in every district and two information officers in each per sub-county.



"Not every farmer will be reached," says Naads spokesperson Shakila Rahim Lamar. Illiteracy and language barriers are two additional hurdles.



Mr Kanyomozi has little faith in these agencies. "Naads is more seen by the placards in the countryside," he says. "They do virtually nothing."



At the mercy of the market



Despite the name applied to the current crisis, the fundamental problem in Uganda is not a shortage of food says Ms Stanlake Samkange, country director for the World Food Programme.



Inadequate distribution of food is the real issue; some areas produce surpluses while others are plagued by dry spells.



"Our real task in many respects is to help redistribute food to people who don't have access to it," Mr Stanlake notes.



Also, some food grown in Uganda is shipped across the border and consumed in Kenya or Sudan. According to the Uganda Export Promotion board, just over one percent of food grown in Uganda leaves the country.



But often, food is exported informally says Minster of State for Disaster Preparedness Musa Ecweru.



He hears of farmers selling off entire fields of cassava, tubers included, before the plants have matured.



Adding to food insecurity is the privatisations of national silos.



Under Obote, there were food reserves in Gulu, Mbale, Jinja, Kampala, Masaka and Kasese and every household was required by law to have at least one granary.



Today, only one national food warehouse is owned by the govertnment, according to Mr Martin Owor, commissioner in the Ministry of Disaster Preparedness.



His department is now focused on developing an emergency fund to respond to disasters when they strike. "The problem is not lack of food," he says. "It's money to buy food."



Mr Ecweru admits that providing food handouts is just a stopgap measure. "It's just a pain killer," he says. "The medicine to hunger is enhanced production." That begins with farmers and how much they know.



Uganda suffers climate change



In the last two decades, Uganda has been hit with erratic weather, which has thrown the country's farming system into disarray. Traditionally, farmers could count on the rains arriving in March and October so they knew when to plant crops.



But today, droughts occur more often and they last longer. And when rains come they are usually heavy and lead to flooding. Extreme weather causes loss of crops leading to food shortages.



The country is currently suffering from one of the worst famines seen in years. It has struck 52 districts and left 3.7 million vulnerable to starvation.



Ben Pickering, humanitarian project coordinator at Oxfam, says that erratic weather in the country has left vulnerable communities without coping mechanisms.



"People don't have any money left and they don't have grain stocks," he remarks.



He says that the country needs to focus on reducing its carbon emissions in order to stave off the adverse effects of global warming. This process will include switching to environmentally friendly fuels and planting more trees, according to an Oxfam report on climate change called "Turning up the Heat."



Ultimately, the duty bearers are members of government, Pickering insists.For now, Oxfam is educating the country about climate change through the media and is encouraging populations to be more politically engaged, says the organization's communication manager Maria Jorgensen.



"We are already sowing the seed for people to stand up and put their leaders to task," she remarks.



Climate Change by the numbers:



7: the number of droughts that occurred in the 1990's.



8: the total number of droughts that occurred in the 80 years between 1911 and 1990.



2007: the year that sever flooding wreaked havoc northern Uganda following the heaviest rain in 35 years.



0.3: the number, in degrees, that the temperature has risen in southwestern Uganda. It's the fastest-warming area in the country.



40: the percentage of icecaps that have melted in Rwenzori since 1955.



97: the percentage of Ugandans that rely on biomass (firewood, charcoal and crop residues) for daily household needs.



2025: when Ugandan forests will be depleted if the current rate of charcoal consumption continues unchecked.



Farmers embrace mobile agric advice



Seeds, water, soil, hoes and pangas. These are the farmer's traditional tools for survival.



And today, mobile phones could be added to the list. Google, MTN and the Grameen Bank have paired up to launch Google/SMS, a mobile service that offers agricultural advice to farmers. The launch of the service means tips on where to sell maize or how to grow cassava and cowpeas are only a text message away.



"Quick and instant information has a really big appeal for farmers, especially in rural areas," says MTN project officer Francis Ssebuggwawo.



Nearly 80 per cent of Ugandans rely on farming to make a living and yet only 13 per cent of them are receiving critical agricultural knowledge they need.



Traditional channels of communication, like agricultural extension workers and instructional pamphlets are not doing enough to reach cultivators in the country. "Without quick, good advice you may find someone ends up losing their entire farm," Mr Ssebuggwawo remarks. He hopes that the text messaging service will help farmers access information more easily. He said relying on extension workers for farming knowledge is a "painful" process.



With Google/SMS, getting information is instant, he explains. And for the next month or so, it's free. After that he says farmers will pay about half the price of sending a regular text message.



The service was launched on July 29 and has been used by 600,000 people seeking tips on health or agriculture. In the last three weeks, 2.6 million texts have been sent in Uganda alone.



Farmers can also use Google Trader, which connects a vendor with an interested customer in the country. A banana farmer in Masaka, for example, can text "sell matooke" and receive a text back from an interested buyer in Jinja.



The service is only offered in Luganda and English but Mr Ssebuggwawo says MTN will soon avail information in Swahili and Runyakole.