AGRICULTURAL LAND IN UGANDA IS LOCKED UP IN THE 'PRISON OF GREED AND PRESTIGE'

A lot has been said lately about solutions to the setbacks in agriculture in Uganda especially with reference to enhancing national food security and contributing to foreign exchange earnings. I agree that in order to transform the agricultural systems in Uganda, several things have to be done right (read differently) and one among them is effective utilisation of the land resource.

It is very likely that one of the major contributors to our setbacks is that the bulk of agricultural land is held (read locked up) by “non-farming” title holders. It is not uncommon in Uganda to hear of a land owner of 1, 2, 4, 5 or more square miles of agricultural land (as one block) with only a small fraction of it, if any, being used for meaningful modern, commercial agricultural production. It is also very likely that the owners of such huge chunks of land are not engaged in commercial agriculture neither do they primarily earn a living from agriculture. It is therefore debatable whether they are bothered about or conscious of the significant role they play in national food security and agricultural exports.

If such people subject the land to some crop production, it will most likely be underplanted and if it holds some livestock, it is grossly understocked but in both cases, the land is largely unimproved. The irony is that the title holder in this case, although not adequately farming the land, will usually lock out those who earn their living from farming from accessing (even for hire in some instances) any inch of the land (grazing land, watering points, land for crop production). Furthermore, it is noteworthy that these small scale producers are the ones who feed the cities where the owners (title holders) of the ‘dormant’ (‘underutilised’) land dwell!

Let’s unlock the huge chunks of land from the ‘prison’ of prestige, greed and primitive pride and make it available to the genuine producers who wish to feed the nation and generate surplus for exports.

While I have no idea about who owns how much of Uganda’s agricultural land, the hypothesis that the bulk of it is in the hands of individuals not earning much of their living directly by - and could do without - themselves being farmers needs rigorous testing so that we can get a clear understanding of the situation.

Should it be established that these land owners do not primarily earn a living from farming and are not about to think that way, government should interest them to either engage in joint partnerships with agricultural investors or sublet (lease) the land to production-minded individuals for a given period of time. That way, their land remains secure, they earn from it without working and they contribute, albeit indirectly, to food security and foreign currency income to the nation.

As it is now, the rich city dwellers who own the huge underutilised chunks of land in the countryside can be said to have used their money to literally lock out not only food but also money for the nation! Several land- and agricultural-related policies and laws ought to be revisited including - sensitive though it is - considering levying a fee on underutilised huge chunks of agricultural land. I am told this idea was once mooted by a distinguished Member of Parliament. What merits / demerits did cabinet and parliament find in that proposal?

We ought to broaden our entrepreneurial acumen into agriculture and take the agricultural land resource from its current perceived underperforming state to a more profitable one. If in the current state of underproduction we still manage to export agricultural products, how much better would we do with just a little more organized use of land?

(This article was published in the New Vision newspaper of 20 March 2012)