Foods Crises in Uganda Issue Analysis

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Table of Contents

The current responses to the food crisis problem in Uganda
Some possible appropriate responses to the food crisis
Works cited

There has been an overwhelming global food crisis over the past 18 months, over the period, prices of basic commodities such as cereals, milk and cooking fat have risen sharply and its effects has been felt around the world with worse hit countries being in the third world. Apart from high inflation rates, there has been some shortage of some basic commodities. You could even think that the era of cheap foods is over for now, as food prices are increasing alarmingly. The crisis has caused economic instabilities and social unrests in both developed and developing countries. There is fear that, before the crisis ends it will have plunged the worlds poorest countries into more and more poverty as a smaller clique of rich countries become even richer. Uganda has not been spared the catastrophe and is bearing the brunt of the worlds recession.

Uganda is a landlocked country located in East Africa, with an economy that relies heavily on agriculture; this sector alone employs more than 80 per cent of the countrys total labor force. Coffee production accounts for a large percentage of the countrys revenue from exports. Uganda has been engulfed with a series of civil war since independence which threatened her economic stability and growth. Currently Uganda is still coping with a 20-year old civil war between the government and a rebel group known as Lords Resistance Army (LRA) (Will).

Uganda is facing a food crisis as a result of several factors which include; natural calamities and civil war together with increasing food prices and an ever rising population. Today Uganda has a population of more than 30 million people with a 4 per cent annual population growth rate. The population has increased pressure on the few available lands for agriculture. As result of pressure on farm land civil war has been experienced. The food crisis in Uganda cannot be blamed on nature alone, but also from the governments actions coupled with some international influence. The 20- year old war in Northern Uganda has caused displacement of people from their farms into protected camps. The internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the camps only rely on relief food from the World Food Program (WFP). These people cannot access their lands for cultivation resulting to shortage of food in Northern Uganda. As more and more people move to camps the demand for relief food is increasing requiring the World Food Program to dig deeper for more finances to feed the hungry people.

Despite the fact that the government military is claiming to have won the battle, the signs of people returning to their homes is minimal leading to more and more food shortages in future. Many people in the camps can only afford one meal per day leading to malnutrition among the young children and the elderly. Peace is an ingredient for a sustainable development while civil war destabilizes agriculture and economic activities. The persisting Uganda civil war has adversely reduced agricultural production in Uganda, resulting to the current food shortages in the country.

Fighting has ceased in some regions and farmers have found their way back into their farms to try to re-establish some farming activities. But their miseries have been increased by the increasing food prices affecting the country and the rest of the world at large: the rising foods prices are putting people at risk of more hunger and despair as people can only afford one meal a day. Prices of beans have more than doubled; corn; peas and millet have increased by more than two thirds of the original prices (Bill). Increased food prices in restaurants are driving customers away. As result of increased prices of grains in the international markets, the World Food Program is finding it difficult to continue providing aid to the displaced. Increasing world prices mean that the World Food Program will need extra billions of dollars to continue feeding the displaced persons in Uganda. Recently the WFP announced that it had a shortfall of finances to continue feeding the people in camps resulting to more food crisis.

Food prices have been increasing since 2004 when the Sudan government and the Sudans Peoples Liberation Army signed a peace agreement, promoting trade across Sudan. Since then Ugandan businessmen have been exporting food to Sudan since it is a desert country: demand has surpassed supply of food commodity in Uganda.

Much food to Northern Uganda is purchased from other regions such as Mbale and the increased cost of transport as result of escalating world oil prices have been credited for the food prices. Petrol costs 15 times more than it was some years ago (Bill). Uganda blames her neighbor Kenya for the increased oil prices because it takes a long time for the petrol tankers to be cleared and make it to the Kenyan/Ugandan border. As a result people smuggle oil from Kenya into Ugandan markets where it is sold at exaggerated prices. Farmers use machines that are driven using petroleum products and the high petroleum prices have increased the cost of production resulting into high food prices.

Trade liberalization has also contributed to the food crisis in Uganda this is because of the actions of some unscrupulous private business people who have played a role in the increasing domestic food prices and shortage; They are said to take advantage of the raising prices in the neighboring markets such as Dafur, Zambia and Rwanda to export grains at the expense of the Ugandans (Godfrey). Trade is liberalized hence the government can not intervene because the forces of demand and supply are left to take cause.

Most Ugandans are subsistence farmers and are currently suffering from the raising cost of fuels and inputs. The farmers also lack ideas on how to add value to their output. The subsistence farmers produce just for consumption without reserving anything for the future; there are no enough stores to keep surplus in time of good harvests, the lack of stores has reduced the food reserves causing food shortages especially when there is a poor harvest.

At the same time the farming practices are poor because no much effort is given to crop production. Farmers just put seeds in the soil and wait until the rains come because the farming activities are weather driven. No fertilizer or even pesticides are used in the production of crops and other farmers never even weed. Farmers have for a long time over relied on traditional methods of farming and the end result is the poor harvests.

Poor infrastructure in Uganda also has had a significant effect for the food crisis, this is because much food produced in the rural areas does not reach the market at all or when it does it is already spoilt. Uganda has enough to feed the world only that more innovation is required to add value to her produce.

Some parts of Uganda have been hit by heavy floods while others have had consistence severe droughts in the recent past. Floods that happened in 2007 displaced many people from their lands and some up to now still are in dire need of resettlement kits, shelters, clothing and food (Bill). The floods washed away crops in the farms; roads, bridges and railway lines were not spared either, leaving some communities completely isolated. The floods have caused soil erosion reducing soil fertility. As result the soils cannot produce enough grains to feed millions of Ugandans who rely on grains.

The world is experiencing global warming as result of human activities, which has reduced the amount of rainfall received in many places and Uganda has not been spared. Some parts of Uganda have in the recent past been faced with consistent draught, reducing food production. Reduced rainfall has resulted to crop failure mainly cereals which most Ugandans rely on as their staple foods.

Conflicting international policies are also credited to the food crisis in Africa and especially Uganda (Asap). In the developed worlds farmers have their farming activities greatly subsidized by the respective governments. Thus the farmers are in a better position to produce and sell to the world at very low prices which creates unfair competition in the third and the developing countries. The farmers in the later areas face stiff competition from the produce of the first world. This combined with poor leadership and lack of innovation has continued to affect the farmers. Leaders have failed to encourage innovation to increase the quality of the produce because they are dictated to by the super powers (Asap). As a result the World Food Program has to import food from America to feed the starving people in Northern Uganda. There is enough food in Southern Uganda but the United Nations can not buy food there to feed the north.

If the UN could buy food from southern Uganda, then the farmers would be encouraged to produce more because they are assured of a ready market. As result there could be no food crisis in Uganda and Africa could produce more in general. Northern Uganda has not been producing food for a long time because of the civil war. Now the war has ceased and the World Food Program can no longer provide more aid to the internally displaced people, increasing the demand for food produced in south resulting to high food prices. Also the Ugandan population has outpaced food production resulting to the food crisis as demand outweighs supply.

Fish has been the staple food for long time in Uganda but now has become a luxury (Kisule). Declining fish population in the Lake Victoria waters and increased demand has resulted to high fish prices in the domestic market. The number of fish caught per day is reducing while demand is rising at an alarming rate, with the few that are caught being sold to fish processing industries at high costs. Now it is difficult to get fish in the local market as more is exported to feed the rising demand in China and India.

The current responses to the food crisis problem in Uganda

In an effort to respond to the current food crisis, the government of Uganda has initiated some measures aimed at increasing food security in the country. The Uganda government is encouraging the United Nations and World Food Program to increase food aid to the internally displaced people in the north. Food aid from the USA under the intervention of the UN has been streaming into the country since the beginning of the civil, war 20 years ago. Again the Ugandan government has embarked on importation of millions of bags of grains to increase food supply. The government has also banned exportation of maize from the country to the neighboring countries.

Deficiency of peace in north Uganda has hurt the region for many years, which has reduced agriculture and other economic activities. The government of Uganda has finally realized the need to bring peace back by signing some peace agreement with the Lords Resistance Army. As result people have moved back to their ancestral homes and started farming again.

In a plan to modernize agriculture; the Ugandan government has supplied an improved banana variety to farmers through the Non-sectorial conditional grants (Kisule). The banana variety produces large bunches of banana fruits and fetches high market prices. Again the Government Agricultural Advisory Service (GAAS) (Kisule) is training farmers on ways of increasing production of chicken using modern technologies. Ugandan statistics show that crop production has increased since the introduction of the plan to modernize agriculture; although the Uganda supply can not meet the current demand despite the growth. In the past Uganda has had no grain and food reserve. The government has also encouraged farmers to grow staple foods that take much shorter time to mature for example bananas and also encouraged the maintenance of individualized household storages.

Citizens on their side have improvised ways to deal with the food crisis problem. With the increasing prices of basic commodities parents have found it cheaper to send their children to boarding schools to cut cost of feeding them daily (Kisule). During schools holidays urban dwellers sent their children to the villages where life is little bit cheaper as compared to cities. Mothers find it easier when left at home alone because they can survive on a cup of tea for lunch and prepare sustainable dinner for the family. Many city dwellers have done away with the help of house helps to reduce the amount of mouths to feed as a short- term measure.

Some possible appropriate responses to the food crisis

Food crisis in developing world results from inability to develop farming techniques (Godfrey). Currently the farming techniques practiced by the majority in the third world countries have been in use for ages and are archaic. They are inefficient methods hence cannot produce enough to keep up with an increasing countrys population. There is need to change from these inefficient techniques to modern ones to increase food production.

In the present food crisis, there is dire need to hold down the consumer prices. The government should balance between what consumers are paying for commodities and the price received by the sellers. This is done in the short term because; in the long run food production may decline as government continues to harmonize prices. Long run policies should increase incentives to producers to increase output which will also increase the income the poor receive.

Addressing inequalities, and the rights of marginalized groups is essential an approach in dealing with the current global food crisis (UN human rights chief). This approach will help in analyzing the extent of the effect of the crisis in the society hence identifying the imbalances prevailing in the country, which causes the food crisis. Understanding the rights of the marginalized people will help in alleviating tension and deter civil unrests in times of food crisis. Food crisis being experienced today is as result of several factors ranging from the disequilibrium in the markets and discriminatory trade policies and biased incentives. The end result of such unfair policies is shortage of adequate food for the general populace. If the rights of the marginalized people are studied it will be possible to eliminate any discrimination against them such as exclusion from land, resources and decent jobs. As result every body in the society will be in a position to mitigate in a small way the food crisis experienced.

The state has a big role to play in implementing strategic policies that will ensure food security for all in the society. The current crisis in Uganda is affecting the whole of the country together with its neighbors hence; nations should cooperate with one another in addressing the food crisis. As the country puts in place plans to address the right to food, the international community on the other hand should create a favorable climate that will enable such national plans to exist, as well as providing financial and technical help where is needed (UN human rights chief).

Works cited

Asaph Ntanda, 2008. Bad policies are the cause of food crisis.
Bill Oketch, Uganda: Food crisis hits war victims in Northern Uganda.
Godfrey Ssali, 2008. Africas Food Crisis: A Letter from Uganda.
Kisule, Halimah Abdallah, 2008. Ugandan Parents Send Their Children to Boarding Schools to Cope with the Food Crisis.
UN human rights chief, Solution to food crisis must address inequalities.
Will Ross, 2002. UN warns of food crisis in Uganda. Web.

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Foods Crises in Uganda Issue Analysis

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