Chairpersons of districts under their umbrella organization, Uganda Local Governments Association-ULGA have pledged to support President Yoweri Museveni’s efforts of transforming subsistence agriculture into commercial farming to ensure wealth creation for all.
This was revealed at a one day meeting and tour of the Namunkekera Rural Industrial Park in Nakaseke, where they were hosted by the Chief Coordinator of OWC, Gen Salim Saleh. The aim of the meeting was to explore areas of mutual interest where Local Government leaders can effectively cooperate with OWC to ensure success for the initiative, which is aimed at eradicating poverty and ensuring overall prosperity for Ugandans through facilitation of sustainable commercial agricultural production.
Speaking on behalf of the ULGA Chairpersons’ taskforce, Mr Joseph Luzige, who is the LCV Chairperson of Mityana District, said that a number of issues were affecting service delivery of government programs at district level. He stressed that the meeting was a starting point in ensuring that the OWC initiative achieves 100 percent success through this partnership to address the challenges faced by Government programmes.
The challenges identified by the leaders include: The need to have district-tailored support through providing inputs that are area-specific since each district has its own peculiar challenges; mindset and attitude change whereby youths who have shunned rural areas for urban life can be supported back into agriculture; and rejuvenation of cooperatives to enable farmers have mass production and access to soft credit.
According to a study commissioned by Gen. Saleh and presented to the leaders, it was revealed that subsistence farming is weak and continuously being pushed to a weaker position within the agricultural sector. This has made it difficult for government interventions such as OWC to reach the intended beneficiaries.
As such, the Logistics Hub concept has been proven as the best effort to empower the subsistence farmer and define the farmer’s relations in the value chain process. The concept concentrates efforts of all sector players in one place and consequently lowers the costs involved in agricultural production.
Lt Gen. Charles Angina, the Deputy Chief Coordinator OWC, said in order for the Hub concept to be successful, there will be formation of various committees from village level to regional level for accountability purposes, which will allow farmers ownership of the resources involved in the production process.
While addressing the meeting, the ULGA President and Lwengo LCV Chairman, Mr George Mutabazi, said that district chairpersons have the capacity to influence the level of commercial agricultural output in the country through mobilising the population to engage in productive agricultural activities.
As a result of the meeting, a resolution was reached to have a Memorandum of Understanding between OWC and ULGA which will be drafted and signed soon.
Gen Saleh said the most important factor in ensuring that the OWC initiative and the partnership with ULGA works, is to focus on mindset change and be able to bring on board every Ugandan citizen to participate in wealth creation endeavors.
In his closing remarks, the State Minister for Agriculture, Hon. Christopher Kibazanga, said that a new idea is being born within the Ugandan economy. He added that thinking big and not small for the agricultural sector is the way to go. For the economy to grow, it must therefore embrace the Logistics Hub concept.
This will help all the stakeholders to conduct coordinated operations with farmers in various parts of the country in order to ensure significant mindset change, hence facilitating an increase in household incomes and clearly bringing out the understanding and definition of the farmers’ role in the value chain.
This was confirmed by Major Kiconco Tabaro Public Relations Officer of Operation Wealth Creation.
