Poverty in Busoga

A few days ago, the President of Busoga Yaife, (an online forum where Basoga people and friends of Busoga discuss issues pertaining to this part of Uganda), introduced a guest social commentator. He requested whoever was interested to openly discuss with him issues of poverty in Busoga. The online exchange was very enriching and I thought I would share it with a wider audience, as the issues discussed seem to be a replica of what is happening all over the country. I have left out the names of the discussants since I did not get their permission to include them.

The first person to engage the guest wrote thus:

Mr president, thanks for introducing the guest to this forum. He is one of the social commentators I respect most on the local scene. I have skimmed through the attachment on his mail and it is spot on (tongue in cheek as it may appear). Over the years I have always questioned in my mind about the poverty figures spewed out by the Ministry of Finance. I came to the conclusion that my misgivings could be that 'am not a trained economist'. However if one did a qualitative survey in any part of the country, you would find that the poverty figures are appalling to say the least. It will take a real change of mind set to achieve even 1/4 of the MDGs. However no one wants to rock the boat because careers have been or are being built around the development agenda. Thanks once again mr guest (name ommitted) and others.

Mr guest had this to say in response:

Mr. discussant (name ommitted), Thank you for your kind compliments. I know that long before I was invited to the kigangu (forum), there was a discussion here about poverty in Busoga and how to deal with it. I have no idea whether or not any conclusions were reached. I thought, though, that I should make a few comments based on my knowledge of a small area of Busoga, an area my siblings and I love to refer to as the "United Nations of Busoga", given its melting-pot character. The area is Naluwerere. My mother happens to have retired there (she's originally from Lumino farther on), thanks to a friend of hers who interested her in purchasing a piece of land there.

It's been some years since she settled there. One thing we have tried to do is put in place a few plans to help keep her busy in her retirement. She has a few heads of cattle, some goats, sheep, pigs, chickens and ducks. exotic chickens simply won't survive there, courtesy of rampant newcastle disease and others. She keeps indigenous ones which survive and thrive only because we regularly buy vaccines in Kampala and despatch a cousin to go and do the vaccination himself. She has lost many calves to a strange ailment that attacks them when they are just under a year old. The goats at one time contracted a curious cough and perished in large numbers. Guinea fowls perished too. Etc.

Why am I telling this story? I have argued again and again, that what imprisons the rural poor in poverty is simple: absence of an adequate agricultural extension service and infrastructure for marketing what they produce. My mother has experienced all these problems despite having money to pay for veterinary services and a phone with which to call vets to come and help before it's too late. One reason her animals have died in the past was because the vets never turned up on time. They mostly did so after the animals had died.

One time I sat one of them down and asked him what the problem really was. His explanation? First, with the chickens, he said they were too few for him to vaccinate, as he would make no money out of that. A government vet committed to the idea of extension would have been happy to vaccinate them as part of his "social responsibility" , no matter whether or not there was (lots of) money to be made. Anyone familiar with China's "barefoot doctors"? There were other reasons why he was not so diligent or prompt in responding to calls. He has his own farm and drug shop to attend to, and he is the only one serving hundreds of thousands of farmers. Sometimes he would receive my mother's call when he was so deep in the villages he could nothing to come quickly.

If my mother can experience this, what of poorer farmers without money or phones? Today the problem has more or less been solved. That's because she has a veterinary assistant on retainer fees. What if she was a poorer farmer?

In today's The New Vision (13 April 2010), President M7 is quoted telling people in Gulu: "... you can use the peace to develop your homestead". HOW will people develop their homesteads, if there are no support services to enable farmers produce successfully? Mind you, he was talking to peasants. Still on the issue of extension services, sometime in 2008 I happened to go to Gulu to look into people's experience with the Northern Uganda Social Action Fund. Just in case you don't what this is/was, it was a reconstruction programme financed by the World Bank to the tune of 100 million US dollars. The basis idea behind it was that ordinary people should form groups and apply for money for income-generating activities. Many groups bought animals of all kinds. Many groups ended up in terrible failure. Animals usually perished due to disease.

The peasants could neither afford to pay for veterinary services, nor had they been taught how to look after some of the difficult animals such as exotic chickens. Much of the money spent in this way went down the drain. If anyone is interested in an academic paper that came out of this, I can send it to you privately. In a frank discussion with a man who had intimate knowledge of the veterinary profession, he described to me how armies of veterinary assistants used to be the backbone of veterinary extension.

Under this government, most of the veterinary assistant lost their jobs. Reason? Graduates were preferred. The trouble with graduates, though, is that they do not work in rural areas. And so rural folk are left to look on helplessly as their animals perish. This chap told me that a group of chicken farmers had at one time dumped their dead birds at the office of the District Veterinary Officer. They had been incensed by their failure to get help despite making repeated appeals.

However, while in Gulu, a group of American marines were in the areas of Amuru, Gulu and Kitgum. They had decided to bring drugs and conduct a veterinary outreach. People came out of the villages with their animals to be vaccinated. It was as if the entire world had descended on the spot where the Americans, helped by local young men, were attending to the animals. It is a long story, but for the first time since the colonial times and just after colonial rule, people witnessed what veterinary extension should be like.

Of course the causes of poverty are many. And so are the remedies. Some are simple and cheap. We in Uganda seem to have forgotten everything we learn from the colonial government: the value of advisory services. Is any one here familiar with NAADS (The National Agricultural Advisory Services)? See you again soon. Guest