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How the Gates Foundation is driving the food system, in the wrong direction

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Gates: the new king of the global food system?

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has spent nearly US$6 billion over the past 17 years trying to improve agriculture, mainly in Africa. This is a lot of money for an underfunded sector, and, as such, carries great weight.

To better understand how the Gates Foundation is shaping the global agriculture agenda, GRAIN analysed all the food and agriculture grants the foundation has made up until 2020.

We found that, while the Foundation’s grants focus on African farmers, the vast majority of its funding goes to groups in North America and Europe.

The grants are also heavily skewed to technologies developed by research centres and corporations in the North for poor farmers in the South, completely ignoring the knowledge, technologies and biodiversity that these farmers already possess.

Also, despite the Foundation’s focus on techno-fixes, much of its grants are given to groups that lobby on behalf of industrial farming and undermine alternatives. This is bad for African farmers and bad for the planet. It is time to pull the plug on the Gates’ outsized influence over global agriculture.

In 2014 GRAIN published a detailed breakdown of the grants made by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to promote agricultural development in Africa and other parts of the world.1 Our main conclusion then was that the vast majority of those grants were channelled to groups in the US and Europe, not Africa nor other parts of the global South.

The funding overwhelmingly went to research institutes rather than farmers. They were also mainly directed at shaping policies to support industrial farming, not smallholders.

Much has happened since then. For starters, Bill and Melinda Gates announced their divorce in May this year, leaving the future of the Foundation and its grant-making in doubt. The news came as Bill Gates himself came under fire for supporting Big Pharma’s patent monopoly on COVID-19 vaccines, for effectively preventing people’s access across much of the world, and for how he treats – or mistreats – women.2 The Foundation’s agenda with agriculture has also been coming under increased scrutiny.

A 2020 report from Tufts University concluded that its work in Africa completely failed to meet the objectives that it had set itself.3 The African Centre for Biodiversity published a string of reports denouncing the Gates Foundation for pushing GMOs and other harmful technologies onto Africa.4

Amongst all this, the US Right to Know collective started a “Bill Gates Food Tracker” to monitor the multiple initiatives that Gates is involved in to reshape the global food system.5

GRAIN wondered whether the Gates Foundation had been receptive to the criticism of its food and agriculture funding. So we set out to update our 2014 report, downloaded the Foundation’s publicly available grant records and created a database of all of the Foundation’s grants in the area of food and agriculture from 2003 to 2020 – almost two decades worth of grant-making.6

The results are sobering. From 2003 to 2020 the Foundation dished out a total of 1130 grants for food and agriculture, worth nearly $US6 billion of which almost US$5 billion is supposed to service Africa.

There was no shift to try and reach groups in Africa directly, no refocusing away from the narrow technological approach, and no moves to embrace a more holistic and inclusive policy agenda.

Of course, the Gates Foundation is about much more than just making grants. The Foundation’s Trust Fund, which manages the Foundation’s endowment, has big investments in food and agribusiness companies, buys up farmland, and has equity investments in many financial companies around the world.7

These, and other activities of Gates in the area of food and agriculture, are illustrated in the infographic that accompanies this report.8

 

 

Infographic by A Growing Culture . For a more in-depth look at each category, visit our Instagram page
The Gates Foundation fights hunger in the South by giving money to the North

Graph 1 and Table 1 provide an overall picture of GRAIN’s research results. Almost half of the Foundation’s grants for agriculture went to four big groupings: the global agriculture research network of the Consortium Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA – set up in 2006 by the Gates Foundation itself together with the Rockefeller Foundation), the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF – another technology centre pushing Green Revolution technology and GMOs into Africa) and a number of international organisations (World Bank, UN agencies, etc.).

The other half ended up with hundreds of research, development and policy organisations across the world. The Gates Foundation claims that 80% of their grants are meant to serve African farmers. But of the funding to these hundreds of organisations a staggering 82% was channelled to groups based in North America and Europe while less than 10% went to Africa-based groups.

The breakdown of the NGOs that the Gates Foundation funds is even worse. Almost 90% of this funding goes to groups in North American and Europe whilst just 5% is directly channelled to African NGOs. The Gates Foundation seems to have very little trust in African organisations serving African farmers.

Not that we would want the Gates Foundation to just send more of its grants directly to Africa if it comes with the same corporate industrial farming agenda. But it illustrates the point of where the priorities of the Foundation lie.

For contrast, Oxfam spends over half of all its funding directly in Africa, and over a third in Asia and Latin America, a lot of it through local NGOs in these regions.9

The Gates Foundation gives to scientists, not farmers

As can be seen in Graph 2, the single biggest recipient of grants from the Gates Foundation is the CGIAR- a consortium of 15 international research centres launched in the 1960s and 70s to promote the Green Revolution with new seeds, fertilisers and chemical inputs.

The Gates Foundation has given CGIAR centres US$1.4 billion since 2003. Another priority for the Gates Foundation in its funding is to support research at universities and national research centres. Again, the vast majority of the Gates’ grants go to universities and research centres in North America and Europe. Together, all this research gets almost half (47%) of the Gates Foundation’s funding.

The Gates Foundation’s support for Green Revolution-style research extends beyond the scientists. One of the most significant recipients of Gates Foundation funding is a high-profile advocacy organisation called the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). The Gates and Rockefeller Foundations launched AGRA in 2006 as a “farmer-centered” and “African-led” institution.

The reality is anything but. AGRA implements a top-down Green Revolution agenda with the main focus being to get new seeds and chemicals developed by Gates funded research centres and corporations into the hands of African farmers.

AGRA establishes, funds, coordinates and promotes networks of pesticide and seed companies and public agencies to sell and supply agriculture inputs to farmers across Africa. It also actively lobbies African governments to implement policies that favour seed and pesticide companies, such as patents on seeds or regulations that allow for GMOs.

The Gates Foundation has given AGRA a whopping US$638 million since 2006, covering almost two thirds of its overall budget. But AGRA’s results are underwhelming to say the least.

In the countries where AGRA is active, yields of staple crops increased only 18% over the past 12 years- far short of AGRA’s goal of doubling yields. Meanwhile, undernourishment (as measured by the FAO) increased by 30% in those countries.10

Instead of acknowledging that their data shows a complete failure to achieve their objectives and changing their approach accordingly, Bill and Melinda are doubling down. In early 2020 they launched their own new research institute called “Gates Ag One”.

This enterprise claims to speed up the development of new seeds and chemicals and get them to farmers in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia more quickly.11 Where will the institute be based? Not in Ethiopia or Sri Lanka but in St. Louis, USA, home of Monsanto and other GMO and pesticide giants.

The Gates Foundation buys political influence

In many subtle and not so subtle ways the Gates Foundation grants are used to push policy makers to implement its top-down industrial farming agenda.

 

Gates at the 2006 World Economic Forum advising policy makers.

One recent example is the 2021 “High-Level Dialogue on Feeding Africa” that was held on 29-30 April this year.12 This forum, funded by the Gates Foundation, and organised by a number of Gates Foundation grantees such as the African Development Bank, CGIAR and AGRA, was meant to launch a policy and funding agenda to further push the Green Revolution into Africa.

The event attracted no less than 18 African heads of state and several other high-profile personalities. But, most remarkable of all, is that of all the international organisations with activities in Africa on the long speakers list of the dialogue, virtually all are Gates grantees.

The forum concluded with a commitment to double agricultural productivity, something AGRA and the Gates Foundation have been promising and failing to deliver for the last decade and a half.

Of course, AGRA itself is also actively pushing the African policy agenda. AGRA is among the key conveners of the annual Africa Green Revolution Forum (AGRF) which calls itself the world’s premier forum for African agriculture and has been convening annual meetings for the past decade.

Partners include some of the main global agrochemical corporations, such as Bayer, Corteva and Yara, and of course the Gates Foundation itself. Unsurprisingly, its agenda is clearly oriented to push government policies towards more chemical inputs, fertilisers and hybrid seeds.

On its website, AGRF has a special section it calls the Agribusiness deal room, which “has directly facilitated over 400 companies with targeted investor matchmaking and hosted more than 800 companies to explore networking opportunities”.13 This is clearly market matchmaking serving corporate interests, not farmers.

While most of the Gates grants are aimed at pushing technological solutions, many are also oriented towards policy change. A total of 45 grants address policy or policy makers. For example, Iowa State University got a grant to support implementation of policy changes aimed at increasing the supply of new seeds to farmers in Africa.

The World Economic Forum received a grant to support a “policy platform for ag innovation and value chain development”, whilst the African Centre for Economic Transformation got a grant to promote agricultural transformation in Africa aimed at policy reforms. In addition, the Foundation is actively involved in bankrolling the “Enabling the Business of Agriculture” project, implemented by the World Bank, amongst many other initiatives.14

Gates’ enthusiasm for GMOs is made clear through its grant database. Michigan State University received US$13 million to create a centre in Africa that provides training for African policy makers on how to use and promote biotechnology. The African Seed Trade Association got a grant to increase farmers’ awareness “of the benefits of replacing their older varieties of crops with newer seed”.

AATF got US$32 million to increase awareness on the benefits of agricultural biotechnology and another US$27 million to fund the approval and commercialization GMO maize in at least four African countries.

So the Gates Foundation is not only funding public acceptance of GMOs, it is also directly funding the approval and commercialisation of GMOs in Africa.

Gates grantees are clearly carrying the Gates agenda and influencing global agricultural policy. In just over a decade, the Gates brainchild in Africa, AGRA, has managed to manoeuvre itself from nowhere right into the centre of agricultural policy discussions across the continent.

Similarly, while resistance to GMOs in Africa remains high, the AATF is managing to get legislation adopted to accept GMOs, as seen most recently in Ghana.

It’s just as important to look at who the Gates Foundation is supporting as who they are not supporting; African farmers.

The Foundation provides zero funding to support farmer seed systems, which supply 80 to 90% of all the seeds used in Africa. Instead, it provides a lot of funds to initiatives that destroy them.

Furthermore, the Gates Foundation props up biofortification as a solution to malnutrition, taking funds and attention away from much more practical and culturally appropriate efforts to improve nutrition by enhancing on-farm biodiversity and people’s access to it.15 Over the last decade or so, the Gates Foundation has given US$73 million to biofortification initiatives that essentially seek to artificially pack nutrients into single crop commodities.

Then, of course, there is Bill Gates himself. Sitting down with heads of state, policy makers and business leaders, Gates tries to convince them that his view of the world is the one to go after. The world has gotten used to pictures of him shaking hands or sitting shoulder to shoulder with the leaders of the world.

Indeed, many of those leaders seem very eager to be in these pictures and heed his advice. The most recent display of this was at Joe Biden’s virtual “Leaders Summit on Climate” where Gates shared his vision on how to fight the climate crisis.16

His recipe to tackle the climate crisis is very similar and equally dangerous to how he wants to feed the world: develop new technologies, trust the market, and put in place policies so that corporations can make it all happen faster.17

Gates clearly isn’t listening to or learning from the people on the ground. So why should anyone listen to him? Rather than being listened to, Gates and his top down corporate technology agenda must be resisted and stopped in its tracks.

GRAIN wishes to thank Camila Oda and María Teresa Montecinos for their help in compiling the database and to ‘A Growing Culture’ for their feedback on the draft and their work on the infographic.

Click here and here to consult all the food and agriculture grants of the Gates Foundation

Graph 1

Graph 2
Table 1: Gates Foundation agricultural grants by type of grantee, 2003-2021
Agency
$US million
Main recipients
CGIAR
1,373
The CGIAR is a consortium of 15 international research centres set up to promote the Green Revolution across the world. Gates is now amongst its major donors. Main recipients include: IFPRI ($223 million), CIMMYT ($346m), IRRI ($197m), ICRISAT ($151m), IITA ($166m), ILRI ($74m), CIP ($91m), and others. Most of the grants are in the form of project support to each of the centres, and many of them are focusing on developing new crop varieties.
AGRA
638
A total of 20 grants for core support and AGRA’s main issue areas: seeds, soils, markets, and lobbying African governments to change policies and legislation.
Int’l orgs (UN, World Bank, etc.)
601
World Bank – IBRD ($192m); World Food Programme (WFP) ($99m); UNDP ($54m.); FAO ($88m.) UN Foundation ($76m). The lion’s share of the grants to the World Bank are to promote public and private sector investment in agriculture ($70m), WFP is supported to improve market opportunities for small farmers, UNDP to establish rural agro-enterprises in West Africa, and the support to FAO is mostly for statistical and policy work.
AATF
170
AATF (African Agricultural Technology Foundation) is a blatantly pro-GMO pro-corporate research outfit based in Nairobi. The bulk of the Gates’ support is to develop GMO drought-resistant maize, a project that has already miserably failed according to many. But it also gets support to raise “awareness on agricultural biotechnology for improved understanding and appreciation”, and to get legislation approved for allowing GMOs in African countries.
Universities & National Research Centres
1,393
Over three quarters of all Gates’ funding to universities and research centres goes to institutions in the US and Europe, such as Cornell, Michigan and Harvard in the US, and Cambridge and Greenwich Universities in the UK, amongst many others. The work supported is a mix of basic agronomic, breeding and molecular research, as well as policy research. A lot of it includes genetic engineering. Michigan State University, for example, got $13m to help African policy-makers “to make informed decisions on how to use biotechnology”.
Although most of the Foundation’s grants are supposed to benefit Africa, barely 11% of its grants to universities and research centres go directly to African universities and research institutions ($147m in total, of which $30m for the Uganda based Regional University Forum set up by the Rockefeller Foundation).
Service delivery NGOs
1,446
The Gates Foundation sees these as agents to implement its work on the ground. They include both large development NGOs and foundations, and the activities supported tend to have a strong technology development angle or focus on policy and education work in line with the Foundation’s philosophy. A whopping 70% of these grants end up with US-based beneficiaries, and another 19% in Europe. African NGOs get 4% of the NGO grants ($73m total, $36m of which goes to groups in South Africa, and another $13m for “Farm Concern International”- an NGO based in Nairobi with the mission of building “market-led business models” for small farmers).
Corporations
244
A relatively minor share of Gates’ funding goes directly to the corporate sector. Most of the grants are for specific technologies developed by the corporations in question. Major grantees include the World Cocoa Foundation ($31m), a corporate outfit representing the world’s major food and cocoa processors, for improving marketing and production efficiency, and Zoetis (a Belgium based veterinary transnational – $14m) for getting veterinary products to farmers.
Total
5,865
Table 2: Gates Foundation agricultural grant recipients, top 10 countries 2003-2021
(Excludes grants to CGIAR, AGRA, AATF and International organisations)
Country
$US million
Main recipients
USA
1,657
The USA is by far the largest recipient country of Gates agricultural grants meant to benefit farmers in poor countries: $1,657 million dished out in over 400 grants. Recipients include US universities and research institutions to produce crop varieties and biotechnology research for farmers in Africa (e.g. Cornell University, a whopping $212m in 26 grants), big NGO projects mostly oriented to develop technology and markets (e.g. Heifer, $51m, to increase cow productivity and Technoserve Inc., $51m, to push new technologies), and several policy and capacity building projects to push the foundation’s agenda in Africa and elsewhere.
UK
466
A total of 81 grants with a focus on research such as for the University of Greenwich to work on pests and diseases in cassava and other crops (10 grants totalling $73m), and for the Global Alliance for Livestock Veterinary Medicines (9 grants totalling $169m) to produce livestock medicines and vaccines sold by the private sector to African farmers.
Germany
154
8 grants for the German Federal Enterprise for International Cooperation (GIZ) to develop supply chains for African cashew and rice farmers and other projects ($57m), and another three grants for the German Investment Corporation to work on African cotton and coffee farming ($47m), amongst others.
India
98
Total of 33 grants to a variety of grantees including three grants to PRADAN ($34m for women farmers training), and three grants to BAIF ($16m) to give farmers access to the latest livestock breeding technologies.
Netherlands
95
Mostly for five grants to the Wageningen University for agronomic research on grain legumes, supporting digital farming and other projects ($57m).
Canada
74
A total of 20 grants mostly towards universities to ensure adoption of new technologies, develop commercial cassava seed supply chains in Tanzania, and to produce vaccines for livestock diseases, amongst other programmes.
Australia
61
A total of 24 grants mostly to universities and research centres (including $30 million for the University of Queensland) to develop sorghum and cowpea hybrids for Africa, and provide genetically improved cattle, amongst other programmes.
China
48
Mostly for the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (two grants totalling $33 million) to develop new rice varieties for farmers across the world.
Uganda
46
Mostly for RUFORUM (two grants totalling over $30 million to support agricultural research universities in the region). RUFORUM was established as a programme of the Rockefeller Foundation in 1992 and became an independent Regional University Forum in 2004.
Kenya
43
Grants for Farm Concern International to create market-oriented value chains for a number of crops, and to a number of agribusiness companies active in the region to do the same.
Total top 10
2,742
$US2.7 billion, or almost half of all agriculture funding from Gates went to grantees in these 10 countries: over 90% to countries in the North.
1 GRAIN, “How does the Gates Foundation spend its money to feed the world?”, Nov 2014. https://grain.org/e/5064
2 See: Luke Savage “Bill Gates Chooses Corporate Patent Rights Over Human Lives” In Jacobin, 2021. https://jacobinmag.com/2021/04/bill-gates-vaccines-intellectual-property-covid-patents, and: Tim Schwab, “The Fall of the House of Gates?”, in The Nation, May 2021, https://www.thenation.com/article/society/gates-me-too-divorce/
3 Timothy A. Wise, “Failing Africa’s Farmers: An Impact Assessment of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa”, Tufts University, July 2020. https://sites.tufts.edu/gdae/files/2020/07/20-01_Wise_FailureToYield.pdf
6 The original Gates database is available from their website: https://www.gatesfoundation.org/about/committed-grants. The GRAIN database which includes a grouping of different types of grantees can be downloaded from https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-ItZGNKANeY00Rv-LRxotRVjStoSXyor/view?usp=sharing and
7 See also: GRAIN, “Barbarians at the barn: private equity sinks its teeth into agriculture”, 2020, https://grain.org/e/6533
8 For a more in-depth look at each category, visit GRAIN’s Instagram pagehttps://www.instagram.com/grain_org/
10 Timothy A. Wise, “Failing Africa’s Farmers: An Impact Assessment of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa” Tufts University, July 2020. https://sites.tufts.edu/gdae/files/2020/07/20-01_Wise_FailureToYield.pdf
11 See: “Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Statement on Creation of Nonprofit Agricultural Research Institute”, Seattle, January 21, 2020. https://www.gatesfoundation.org/ideas/media-center/press-releases/2020/01/gates-foundation-statement-on-creation-of-nonprofit-agricultural-research-institute
15 GRAIN, “Biofortified crops or biodiversity? The fight for genuine solutions to malnutrition is on,” 4 June 2019: https://grain.org/e/6246

Original Source: Grain.org

FARM NEWS

Drought ruining Kasese farmers’ livelihoods

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Along Bwera-Mpondwe road, in Kasese district, farmers till the land, with every hoe raising more dust than dirt, a testament of how hard the sun has scorched the ground. Located at the slopes of the Rwenzori Mountains, the low altitude leads to high temperatures as the district also sits on the Equator. In January this year, the average temperatures were 25.1 °C

Gideon Bwambale walks through drying maize garden.

Today, the temperature is 28.6 °C. The most affected areas are low-lying sub-counties like Kahokya, Nyakatonzi and Muhokya.

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Farmers count losses as dry spell scorches maize gardens

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Many farmers say they had borrowed money from banks and Saccos

During the first planting season, which usually kicks off in March, many farmers had hoped for a bumper harvest.

However, the unrelenting dry spell in some parts of the country has withered the crops, resulting in poor food harvests mainly maize and beans.

Although some districts received rains last week, many farmers, especially those growing maize and groundnuts, are counting losses after several acres of the crops got scorched by sunshine.

In the central region, the most affected are farmers in the districts of Nakasongola, Kiboga, Kayunga, Mubende, Kyankwanzi, Gomba, and parts of Rakai.

In Nakasongola District, the most affected sub-counties include; Nabiswera, Wabinyonyi, Kalungi, and Kalongo where farmers now stare at eminent hunger and lost cash invested in their respective gardens.

In Mulonzi Parish, Nabiswera Sub-county, Mr Simon Male has lost 35 acres of maize.

“I grow maize on a commercial scale, but my entire garden is scorched by the hot sun. I have lost the hope of harvesting any grains from this particular season. I did not anticipate the hot sun. Part of the money invested in my agriculture projects is from the loans,” he says.

Mr Ali Kisekka, a maize farmer and chairperson of Kabulasoke Sub-county in Gomba District, says all his 30-acre maize plantation withered two months after germination (between March and April).

“I spent money on renting the land, labour, purchase of seeds, and other inputs, amounting to Shs6m. Unfortunately, the rain did not come in sufficient amounts,” he says.

“Almost 50 percent of farmers in my sub-county are counting losses. We are now praying for the next season,” he adds.

Irreparable damage

Mr Emma Kintu, another farmer in Kabulasoke, says: “The damage has already been caused and we cannot save anything even if we get rain now, we are going to cut the maize and use it for mulching.”

Mr Samuel Muwata, a produce dealer in Kampala’s Kisenyi suburb, says the poor maize harvest may cause a spike in maize flour prices as was the case last year.

“The demand [for maize ] is increasingly high, and if there is no importation of maize from countries like Tanzania, there will be shortage which will cause prices to increase  possibly  in August or at the beginning of September when schools open for Third Term,” he says.

Currently, a kilo of maize grains costs between Shs800 and Shs1000, down from Shs500 a month ago while maize flour (corn) is between Shs1,800 and Shs2,000, down from Shs1,500.

Mr Augustine Wafula, a farmer in Busabana Village, Lunyo Sub-county, Busia District, says he only harvested four acres of maize from his five-acre garden. “I got a bank loan to plant five acres of maize, but ended up harvesting only four bags,” he says.

Mr Wafula’s loss has dealt a huge blow to his marketing prospects, especially in Kenya, which is a good destination for maize from Sofia and Marachi markets in Busia Municipality.

Because of the relatively good market for cereals in Kenya, several Ugandans were forced to rent land to plant maize. Unfortunately, the weather has left most of them counting losses.

Mr Anatoli Kizza, a farmer in Kiyindi Village, Buikwe District, says he used to supply schools with maize grains, but since the beginning of the year, he had not planted any because of the dry season.

“I tried to purchase the maize grains locally, but they could not reach the kilogrammes desired by the schools,” Mr Kizza says, adding that the dry spell is a result of abuse of the environment, including deforestation and encroachment on wetlands.

In Bugiri District, Mr Imani Mumbya, a groundnuts farmer in Isegero Village, Nabukalu Town Council, says he harvested nothing after planting the crop in his five-acre garden last season [August to December 2023] due to the unpredictable weather pattern, which was characterised by scorching sunshine.

Abrupt weather change

Mr Mumbya says following the first rains in January, he rushed to plant groundnuts. However, the rains abruptly stopped before the seeds barely sprouted.

He adds that because few seedlings sprouted, he cleared the garden in preparation for the second rains in April, which lasted until the end of May and helped the seedlings to sprout.

“But before the groundnuts could spend their entire 86-day period to mature, another drought came which prevented me from harvesting,” Mr Mumbya further explains, describing it as “the worst season during the 10 years he has been a farmer”. Mr Aloysious Kizito, a renowned farmer in Bbugo Village, Kyotera District, says maize harvests in the area have been too low as compared to last season which has reduced farmers’ expected returns on invested funds.

Although this area previously received heavy rains, Mr Kizito believes it was not evenly spread throughout the whole season, which led to poor harvests.

“We received heavy rains for two and half months yet most seasonal crops take three to four months to completely mature,” he says.

The most affected seasonal crops are maize, soya beans, peas, and Gnuts, which is likely to result in food shortages in the coming months.

Mr Abdul Birungi, a cereal farmer in Lubumba Village, Kyotera District, says although he reaped seven tonnes of maize last season from his seven-acre garden, this season he got only one tonne .

He attributes the poor harvests to what he describes as misleading messages issued by experts from the Uganda National Meteorological Authority (UNMA)   which warned farmers against planting crops in January and early February.

“I wanted to plant in early January, but changed my mind upon getting their [UNMA] advice, I feel puzzled because those that didn’t go with their advice in our area at least got good harvests,” he says.

But Ms Lillian Nkwenge, the UNMA principal public relations officer, says many farmers always fail to follow their forecasts as issued and end up blaming the Authority.

“The country is not expected to have major changes in the usual rainfall patterns this year. Most parts of Uganda normally have two rainfall seasons separated by dry season. So  , we hope to get the second wet season in early September,’’ she says.

Weighing options

In Teso Sub-region where farmers have for decades relied on rain-fed farming, they have started having a discourse on how to wholly revert to livestock or continue to depend on crop farming which continues to be affected by the erratic rainfall pattern.

The call to revert to livestock farming comes amid yet another failed crop harvest.

Mr John William Ejiet, the Kapelebyong District production officer, says when farms were at a critical stage of flowering, the drought again set in, leaving hundreds of farmers dejected.

 He says now is the time for farners to invest in micro-scale irrigation.

“Whereas there are small grants for small irrigation from the government for farmers, the rate of adoption is still low yet we are at a critical moment when we need to adapt to new farming techniques other than the rain-fed farming which is no longer reliable,”   Mr Ejiet says

 Ms Joyce Akwii, a resident of Omodoi in Ocokican Sub-county, Soroti District, says she invested more than Shs3m in crop farming but got less than Shs500,000.

 “I have resolved that come next year, my five acres of land that I have been using for crop farming will be turned into a goat and sheep farm,” Ms Akwii explains.

Last resort

Mr Mike Odongo, the chairperson of Ngora District, says for farmers to have a win -win situation, it is high time that they invested in both livestock and crop farming,.

“The goats and sheep can scavenge in the harsh environment,” Mr Odongo reasons.

 He says the once good environment that defined Teso has heavily been depleted and it is one of the reasons for the altered rainfall patterns.

“There is a need for soul searching among people of Teso, and deliberately focus on a greening campaign like we have started in Ngora with over 20,000 trees donated by Roofings Group and Centenary Bank. This is one of the mechanisms that may enable farmers to manage to retain water in the soil,” the district chairperson advises.

Mr Stephen Ochola, the Serere District chairperson, says the ultimate answers lie in livestock farming.

“If you can’t find Shs10m in growing cereal crops, you can find that in only three fattened animals and you will readily be able to have your children at university,” he says.

Contradiction

While agriculture is the backbone of Uganda’s economy and employs more than 70 percent of the population, most farmers practice it without any training, something that has limited their opportunities of transitioning to large-scale merchandised commercial agriculture. In the new budget (2024/25 budget), the government reduced the allocation to the sector by 37 percent from   Shs1 trillion last year to only Shs644.39b. This budget allocation is already far below the required 10 percent allocation to the sector agreed under the 2003 Malabo declaration.

Original Source: Monitor

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Strengthening Small-Scale Farming in Uganda through Farmer Field Schools.

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By Witness Radio and ESSAF teams.

In Uganda, the shortage of desired and high-quality plant genetic resources remains a barrier to small-scale agriculture and threatens food and nutritional security, yet small-scale farmers are known for being the highest producers of the world’s food.

Indigenous seeds are vital for ensuring food and nutrition security and play a crucial role in sustainable agriculture. Small-scale farmers rely on farm-saved seeds obtained through farmer-managed seed systems (FMSS).

On the 6th of June 2024, the Eastern and Southern Africa Small Scale Farmers Forum (ESSAF-Uganda) organized a webinar to explore the impacts of participatory plant breeding using the farmer field schools on upholding the farmer-managed seed system in communities.

In this webinar, participants shared the impacts of Farmer Field Schools (FFS) on small-scale farmers’ access to and use of quality seeds and discussed existing opportunities for FFS to upscale their seed work, thereby enhancing farmers’ income and livelihoods.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, a Farmer Field School (FFS) is an approach based on people-centered learning offering space for hands-on group learning, enhancing skills for critical analysis, and improved decision-making by local people. FFS activities are field-based, and include experimentation to solve problems, reflecting a specific localized context.

According to Ms. Margaret Masudio Eberu, the National Vice Chairperson, ESAFF-Uganda Chapter, revealed that seeds have transformed into commercial proprietary resources due to technological advancements, market influences, and evolving legal systems forcing small-scale farmers to shift from active producers to passive consumers of industrial goods, including seeds, with modern agricultural practices.

Please find the rebroadcast here:

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