Recently, I was privileged to have been chosen to be part of the team of four people that were tasked to carry out a study on behalf of Food & Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and International Human Rights Internship Programme (IHRIP). The focus of the study was to establish how the budget at the national, district and lower government levels impact on the delivery of National Agricultural Advisory Services (NAADS) for small holder farmers to produce food which would translate into the realisation of the right to food for majority of Ugandans.
Our study findings are to be used in compiling a manual on "How Budget Analysis can Strengthen Right to Food Advocacy". This project is to be implemented in four countries namely; Philippines, Guatemala, Brazil and Uganda.
The study has been able to expose the inadequacies exhibited by NAADS programme since it was launched almost a decade ago. At its inception NAADS was supposed to be the redeemer of poor farmers by helping them to form groups, get training in modern agriculture practices and acquire knowledge in modern farming.
The whole programme was in general terms supposed to increase food production for the country such that farmers would have enough food for subsistence while the surplus would be sold off to markets domestically and regionally.
Stakeholders do not agree on the benefits of NAADS to Ugandans so far. Those who have benefited from it think that it has delivered while those who are not in any way linked to it think otherwise.
District NAADS Coordinators are currently some of the wealthiest officials at the districts where they are based because they control one of the largest budgets at that level.Throughout our interaction with them they laboured to explain to us how the programme has brought prosperity to farmers compared to the situation before NAADS advent. President Yoweri Museveni was fast to act in suspending NAADS funding after a public outcry about its failures. It had all along been public knowledge that a lot of money had been sunk into the programme but the greatest chunk of it had been used to organise workshops and farmer sensitization seminars while the rest had been swindled.
It is difficult to deny that NAADS has had a positive impact. But it is disgraceful for its officials to showcase its minute achievements vis-à-vis the resources that have so far been spent on the programme.
Cases were cited of coordinators who would buy local goats and pigs only to claim that they bought improved breed at exorbitant prices.Some were out rightly rejected by farmers, especially those who were enlightened enough, but others were taken up by unsophisticated farmers only to realize later that they had been classically duped.
We could not authoritatively ascertain, neither could we independently verify the information taunted by NAADS Coordinators that there is a direct link between the current high food production in most districts and the intervention by NAADS in providing such an enabling atmosphere.
What is undeniable is that food is currently enough in most rural areas we visited despite its high price in most urban areas.
This brings us to another fundamental question about the purposes of NAADS. The current scenario of high food prices in the city cannot in any way be blamed on scarcity of food in rural areas. The economics of food have, for the first time in many years defied the laws of demand and supply.
Whereas one would ordinarily have expected moderate prices because supply is high, the reverse is happening. Possibly we may see a new trend where the prices will go down when supply is at its lowest, although I highly doubt this is likely to happen.
The other issue that we may need to ponder about is that President Yoweri Museveni's assertion that high prices for farm produce implies high incomes for farmers. This kind of reasoning had previously been espoused by veteran journalist Andrew Mwenda while discussing scarcity of food around the world three weeks ago.
Museveni and Mwenda couldn't have been more wrong. The price of food can never determine the welfare of the peasants because the people who are the major buyers of this food are the elites who will seek to recoup what they have paid in form of high prices on food by hiking the prices of the services they offer and the manufactured goods they sell which the peasants cant do without.
Therefore, whereas a farmer may on the face of it get a high price by selling his Matooke, he pays more by paying for maternal services at a local clinic because the person treating them will have increased their price to be able to buy Matooke.
In fact, the farmer is better off earning less by selling his Matooke at a low price than earning more and paying more at the clinic. Another view may be that the standard of living of the farmer in the above mentioned scenario is almost constant, if not worse off because of the spiral effect the increase in the price of food is likely to generate hence leading to increase in most commodity prices across the board.
These issues put us in a dilemma on what the way forward could be in trying to improve food production and incomes for people who produce it. If we use the elimination method, we can begin by proposing that the hitherto method employed by NAADS of organizing too many training workshops is not among the solutions. Neither is it a solution to completely do away with NAADS.
The solution lies in the fact that government must strictly monitor its programmes and should always urgently respond to people's needs because a stitch in time saves nine.
Had the president listened to the people earlier, less money would have been stolen, and possibly more food would have been produced by farmers and prices would have been a little bit cheaper than they are now.
As things stand currently, neither the farmers in rural areas nor the elites in town are benefiting from the high prices of goods and services.
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