Increase agriculture funding - CSOs

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In Summary

The activists say government has continuously suffocated the agriculture sector that employs 80 per cent of the country’s population.


Civil society organisations have resolved to seek audience with the minister of Finance and the President to discuss the limited funding to the critical agriculture sector.
Contributing to a paper launched by the Forum for Women in Democracy (FOWODE) on the gender analysis of the agriculture budget in Kampala on Thursday, the activists noted that government has continuously suffocated the agriculture sector that employs 80 per cent of the country’s population. 
“We shall continue with our advocacy and we shall lobby the Ministry of Finance and the President to increase funding to the agriculture sector,” said Ms Patricia Munabi, the Executive Director for FOWODE.
“We shall also demand answers from the Ministry of Agriculture to tell us how it spends the money allocated to it because much of it does not reach the intended beneficiaries, the farmers particularly the women,” said Munabi added.
She said the funds that are sent to districts to benefit the farmers are not properly monitored.
Ms Munabi added that farmers must be empowered with knowledge on how much money goes to the districts and how it can benefit them and how government can market their produce thereafter.

 Ms Sophie Kyagulanyi, the research and policy analyst, who presented the paper, noted that the biggest challenge facing the agricultural sector is very low use of better agricultural technology like improved seeds, fertilisers and mechanised methods of cultivation. She said government in this current financial year (2012/2013) allocated Shs379 billion to the agriculture sector in its 10 trillion overall budget which she said is too little for such a key sector.

 The Shs379 billion allocation represented 3.5 per cent of the national budget. The percentage allocation according to activists is below the national development plan target. Ms Kyagulanyi attributed the 2011 food inflation on the low agricultural productivity where the country failed to meet the increasing demand for agricultural products from a wider regional and international market.
Mr Aggrey Nshekanabo, the public relations officer for Send a Cow Uganda, said government should invest in agro-processing to add value to the farmers’ produce.

mnalugo@ug.nationmedia.com

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