The President of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni, made a moving speech at the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) summit which is taking place in Munyonyo Kampala, Uganda.
The 3-Day event organized under the auspices of the African Union -The Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP), is an African Union Agenda 2063 continental initiative that aims to raise agricultural productivity, increase public investment in agriculture, and stimulate economic growth through agriculture-led development, thus helping African countries eliminate hunger and reduce poverty.
The summit attracted several Heads of State and governments across Africa, politicians, technocrats and members of the academia from across the globe.
Bellow is the speech by H.E. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, President of Uganda, at the CAADP Extraordinary Summit
January 11, 2025
Excellencies,
the Heads of state and
heads of delegations to this CAADP Summit,
Ladies and gentlemen. Greetings and you are most welcome to Uganda.
Right from the 1960s, when our political Movement started, initially, as a Student Movement, we were able to see that a Country like Uganda, located around the Equator, could be very advanced and prosperous on the basis of four sectors of the Economy. These four, we identified as: Commercial Agriculture; manufacturing; services; and ICT. In the pre-colonial and colonial times, our economy was, mainly, pre-capitalist and based on subsistence agriculture (okukolera ekidda kyoonka-working only for home consumption); some artisan craft skills such as obuhesi (blacksmithing), kubaija (woodwork), Kunogoora (ceramics-clay work), etc; and some primordial services such as kuragura (healing), etc. By the end of the colonial times, only 9% of the homesteads were in the narrow colonial cash economy described as “enclave economy”, meaning a small island of modernity, surrounded by a sea of under development. That “enclave economy” of the colonial economy of Uganda, was described as the economy of the 3Cs and 3Ts. The 3Cs, being: coffee, cotton and copper and the 3Ts being: tobacco, tea and tourism. The agricultural and mineral products being, mainly, exported as raw-materials – without making final products out of them except for some small effort of the Nytil textile factory of only 23 million metres, started by the progressive British Governor, Andrew Cohen, who arrived in Uganda in 1952.
Our line, therefore, ever since the 1960s, has been as follows:
(a) Fully commercialize agriculture to achieve food security and homesteads income security by undertaking agricultural enterprises guided by ekibaro (to calculate the maximum possible returns) given the size of the family land.
(b) In commercializing agriculture, use the strategy of intensive agriculture for families of 4 acres or less and extensive agriculture for families of bigger lands. With intensive agriculture, you select high value enterprises which, though you do them on a small scale, you get good family income. With extensive agriculture, you can adopt low value crops which when you do on a big scale, you get good income for the family.
(c) The Country needs both the products of intensive agriculture and extensive agriculture because, many times, one needs the other.
(d) In our 1996 election manifesto, we identified seven enterprises for intensive agriculture: Coffee, fruits, dairy products, food crops for the family in the four acres and, then, poultry for eggs and piggery in the back yard (ekanyima, emanju) plus fish farming for those near the wetlands-on the periphery of the wetlands, not in the centre. In our calculation, crops like cotton, tea, maize, sugar-cane and enterprises like ranching etc, could only make money for the family, when they are done on a medium or large scale.
(e) Recently, our People have been adding crops like palm oil, cocoa and cashew nuts on the list of the high value crops that can give good incomes to the families even if you do them on one acre.
(f) To do some of the intensive agriculture enterprises, you need inputs from the extensive agriculture products. To produce poultry feeds, animal feeds for pigs, fish meals etc, you need maize, sugar by-products, etc. If you are to import all these, it may render your products uncompetitive.
(g) After waking up our people as to the crucialness of Commercial agriculture and rationalizing it, we, then, realized the danger and the unfairness of confining ourselves to just producing raw-materials for other Countries, far away, to transform into finished products. A Kg of coffee may give us USD 2.5 as a raw-material. However, the same Kg, roasted, ground into powder and packaged, will give the cleverer foreigners who add those steps abroad, USD 40. This is how Africa has been a major donor to the parts of the World that are managed by cleverer People. We do not only lose money per Kg of coffee, we also lose jobs. The roasting jobs, the grinding jobs and the packaging jobs, are done by the children of the foreigners, while Africa’s children are drowning in the Mediterranean sea going to prosperous Europe and running away from impoverished Africa. The battle for value addition, has been a big one because there are lobbies that want to keep Africa as a raw-materials producing Continent. In Uganda, we have moved in some areas – a bit in textiles, a lot in dairy products, a lot on fish, a lot on sugar, a bit on maize, a bit on leather, a bit on furniture and wood-products, etc. What is true of agricultural raw-materials is, of course, also true of the raw-materials of minerals, forest products, etc.
(h) The value addition to agricultural products, ensures vertical integration in the agricultural sector – from the garden to the table and from the farm to the wardrobe (for clothes, shoes, etc). However, it also ensures horizontal integration with the other sectors – manufacturing, services, etc. How can you say that you are promoting tourism, when all the food the tourists eat, is being imported?In Uganda, the hotels serve Ugandan liquid milk, yoghurt, butter, sugar, fruits, beef, etc. On account of reasons I cannot understand, some Ugandans insist on eating, wheat bread and rice. At 80 years of age, I am very comfortable with my meals of cassava (muhogo), millet (oburo), meat (a few times in a week), milk for my coffee, bananas (eminwa-fingers of bananas), ebinyeebwa (G-nuts, sometimes), Obushaza (peas), ebihiimba (beans), ebijuma (fruits), etc, all, Ugandan products. It is the bread eaters and rice-eaters, that cause us to import some food. I do not eat chicken, pigs, eggs, etc, because I am from the savannah; but they are abundantly available. Therefore, in Uganda, the hospitality industry is firmly integrated with our agriculture, except for rice and wheat.
(I) In order to launch our agriculture on the journey of social- economic transformation, away from the pre–capitalist, pre -socialist traditional mode to modern Commercial agriculture, we have done the following:
(i) Politically mobilize, through sensitization, the People to move away from the pre-money kukolera ekidda kyoonka (working only for the stomach) to commercial agriculture with ekibaro (calculation). 67% of the homesteads in Uganda are now in the money economy for the first time in human history. At Independence, only 9% were in the money economy. By 2013, only 32% were in the money economy. That is why, I had to involve the Army to distribute seedlings. I was begging these villagers to get out of poverty.
(ii) Through Scientific research, ensure good quality seeds. I salute our Scientists for developing a long list of improved seeds: higher yields, disease resistant, drought resistant, etc etc.
(iii) Sensitize farmers about the best agro-practices-spacing, mulching, water-conservation, etc.
(iv) Ensure disease control – immunization, spraying against pests, etc.
(v) Ensure food safety – against aflatoxins, etc.
(vi) To stabilize agriculture, have standby irrigation, using gravity or solar – powered water pumps. This will eliminate the risks of the erraticness of the rain.
(vii) Use fertilizers to restore the nutrients in the soil.
(viii) Conduct soil mapping to determine what can grow where.
(ix) Discourage land fragmentation on inheritance because it creates Land with Disability (LWD) – land that can no longer do certain enterprises because of the smallness.
With these measures, Africa will be a super – power economically. Since ancient times, this part of Africa had strong agriculture. We always have two harvests in a year – the harvest of Katuumba – the season of March to end May and Omwaaka (the big harvest of August to December). The harvest of May is called obwijegashe (the small harvest) and the one of August to December is called Omwaka (the big yearly harvest). All this was with the traditional technology and just the rain – fed agriculture. In some areas, however, there was some irrigation in Ancient Egypt, the Kilimanjaro area, etc. When HM Stanley walked through this area (Congo – Uganda – Tanzania, between 1887-1889), he wrote as follows on pages 298 and pages 371-372 respectively, of his book entitled: In Darkest Africa, Volume II,
‘‘A march of an hour and a half in the afternoon, apparently not far from the river, brought us to the populous district of the Babusesse. The banana plantations were very extensive, reminding me of Uganda and their shades covered a multitude of huts (1887 December 5th – Babusesse). Fields of millet and seseme, plots of sweet potatoes, occupied the outskirts of these plantations, and there was ample evidence roundabout that the land was thickly peopled and industriously cultivated.’’
Later on, while travelling through the Rwizi area of Ankole:
‘‘Crossing a narrow neck of land, descended into the basin of the Rwizi. By degrees the misty atmosphere of this region was clearing and we could now see about five miles distance, and the contour of the pastoral plateau of Ankori. It was not by any means at its best. It was well into the droughty season. The dry season had commenced two months previously. Hilly range, steep cone, hammock and plain were clothed with grass ripe for fire. The herds were numerous, and all as fat as prize cattle. In the valley, we had passed over 4,000 cattle of the long-horned species. The basin of the Rwizi, which we were now in, and which was the heart of Ankori, possessed scores of the finest herds of cattle I had never seen before.”
He was clearly amazed by the scale of the production. This Africa of having no food and begging, is not the real Africa, but the colonial and neo-colonial Africa. It is a shame.
I need to conclude my remarks by talking about the issue of water for livelihood and for production as well as the need for removing the Non-tariff barriers in the CFTA (Continental Free Trade Area). Uganda is lucky in that we have a lot of water. Our major problem is to persuade our uninformed or misinformed People, by guiding them to stop undermining our water resources by encroaching on the wetlands, the forests, the catchment areas, the River banks and the Lake shores. Some other parts of Africa, however, are not so lucky. Northern Africa, has got a water problem. Even Southern Africa, gets periodic shortages of water. Here, in the Nile Valley, we are always arguing about the 85 billion Cubic metres of that river at Khartoum. In the past, I posed a question to Dr. Boutros Ghali of Egypt the following questions: “Are you aware that the Congo River has 3000 bn cubic metres of water per annum going into the Atlantic Ocean? Is the Atlantic Ocean thirsty for water? Why doesn’t Africa discuss with our brother People of Congo about how this massive water that is not used, could help the water–stressed parts of Africa? Is Africa aware of the technology of de-salination? De-salination happens in nature, done by the sun evaporating ocean water into vapour that, eventually, becomes rain. Why doesn’t Africa intensively study this? If the cost of de-salination goes down, Egypt and the other coastal Countries, will become up- stream Countries while we that harbour the origin of the Nile will become down – stream Countries.
On the issue of Non – tariff barriers (NTBs), there is no doubt that they undermine the advance of agriculture in Africa. Uganda easily produces all types of agricultural products: maize, sugar, milk, beef, poultry products, etc. The internal market is not enough. However, production is disrupted when in some years, some of the brother Countries say they have bumper crops and delicense Ugandan products. Why do you delicense product from a brother Country? If you have a bumper crop, let the products compete. After the Ugandan product has been delicensed, then you hear that the delicensing Country has now a shortage of this or that. Can they now import it from Uganda? By that time the Ugandan farmers have been rendered bankrupt and have migrated to new products such as coffee that are, mainly, bought by foreigners, away from Africa. How will African agriculture sustainably advance, with this erraticness?
I thank everybody
Yoweri Kaguta Museveni
PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF UGANDA.
About CAADP:
Launched in 2003 following the Maputo Declaration and reaffirmed in 2014 in Equatorial Guinea with the Malabo Declaration, CAADP focuses on improving food security and nutrition and increasing incomes in Africa’s farming-based economies.
CAADP is the most ambitious and comprehensive agricultural reform effort ever undertaken in Africa. It has emerged as the cornerstone framework for driving agricultural transformation across Africa and represents a fundamental shift toward development that is fully owned and led by African governments.
