Over 72% of Ugandans live and work in rural areas, these are largely smallholder farmers who engage in peasant farming for home consumption (okukolera ekidda kyonka).
The 2014 National Population and Housing Census found that 68.9% of Ugandans (that is, seven in every 10 Ugandans) engaged in subsistence farming with hardly any surplus for the market. According to the census, out of the 6.9 million homesteads in Uganda doing farming, 4.8 million produced entirely for their own consumption. For such families, any marketable surplus comes as a surprise
Therefore, since on average every family in Uganda has five members, it follows that over 24 million people are living outside the monetised economy. For example, in Bumwena parish, Malongo sub-county in Mayuge district, out of a total of 6,894 homesteads, 6,454 (94%) were found by census enumerators as working for ekidda kyonka. Directly translated from Lugwere, ekidda kyonka means working for the stomach (in other words subsistence).
Similarly, in Labala parish, Pabo sub-county in Amuru district, 3,454 of the 3,675 homesteads in the parish were subsistence farmers. Only eight homesteads practised commercial farming.The situation is worse in Karambi parish, Nyarubuye sub-county in Kisoro district. Out of 2,635 homesteads in the parish, 2,513 (95%) were in subsistence farming and the remaining 122 homesteads were engaging in other activities other than agriculture. None of the families were practising commercial agriculture.
The majority of Ugandans in all regions (central, eastern, northern and western Uganda) work so hard, some few even practise commercial farming, but cannot determine the return on their sweat or even investment (ekibalo, cura is not done).
NRM understands that transformation of the rural economy is going to be driven by demand creating supply, and not the other way round. Therefore, using the parish model, over the next fi ve years, NRM is going to scale up its efforts to provide incentives and support to smallholder farmers to use their land more productively so as to boost household incomes, escape from poverty and set in motion the industrial revolution.
NRM is also aware that Ugandans have less options beyond farming due to low levels of development of off-farm activities. Hence most of the people work less hours a day. We have already diagnosed this and started creating off-farm opportunities as we continue to support commercialisation of agriculture that is industry and market-led.
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The overall goal is to raise household incomes so as to improve the welfare of all Ugandans and boost the purchasing power needed for the growth of the domestic market.
In the past term, NRM introduced OWC as a vehicle for reaching out and supporting the 68.9% in the subsistence sector. The overall intention was to improve household incomes and food security.OWC has provided logistical support as well as offered advice in enterprise selection and mindset change.
For a long time, Uganda’s coffee production had stagnated at 3 million 60kg bags annually. Through OWC in 2014, we started distributing coffee seedlings to farmers in all the 112 coffee producing districts. Of these, 88 and nine grow only Robusta and Arabica, respectively. Nine have both varieties.
We distributed 702 million coffee seedlings to nearly 1.2 million households of which 61% (430 million seedlings) survived with good yields. This led to an increase in the coffee production area from 648,000 acres in 2015 to over 1,399,200 acres in 2019. Subsequently, the volume of coffee produced increased from 4.55 million 60kg bags in FY2015/16 to 7.75 million in FY2019/20 (a 70% increase).
UCDA has also put emphasis on improving the quality of coffee. Good coffee quality production begins with farmers planting best quality seedlings.NRM is going to continue supporting UCDA to invest in quality improvement to achieve large coffee beans of screen 18 grade, which can only be achievable if farmers use the right planting materials obtained from nurseries licensed by UCDA, and pick only red ripe coffee.
Uganda’s export earnings from coffee increased from US$352 million in 2015 to US$496 million in 2019/20, notwithstanding the drop in coffee prices on the international market to US$1.62 per kg in 2019/20 from US$2.06 in 2015/16.
The production of maize has increased by 52% from 2.6 million metric tonnes (MT) in 2016 to 5 million MT in 2019. The volume of maize exports has also increased by 6% from 263,114MT in 2016 to 278,693 MT in 2019. In addition, the value of exports increased by 12% from US$84.99 million in 2016 to US$95.48 million in 2019.
Tea production increased by 19% from 67,000MT in the FY2015/16 to 79,466 MT in FY2018/19. In addition, the volume of exports increased by 34% from 54,898 MT worth US$74.5 million in FY2015/16 to 73,580 MT worth US$89 million.
Reports indicate overproduction of tea leaves in some districts against the existing processing capacities, as is the case of Kyenjojo, Kabarole, Kanungu and Buhweju. NRM government interventions, together with the farmers’ own initiatives, have stimulated the establishment of more tea factories from 27 to 33, including two new ones that were set up in Kabale and Kisoro with the support of the Government.
Additionally, 15 new tea factories are being established and are at different levels of construction in the following districts: Kyenjojo (2), Buhweju (3), Kanungu (1), Bushenyi (1), Rukiga (1), Kisoro (1), Ntungamo (1), Kamwenge (1), Mbarara (1), Luwero (1), Zombo (1) and Sheema (1).
