Can Uganda be the food basket it aspires to be?

Today is world Food Day. I have not always paid much attention to food prices as food in Uganda, for the middle class at least, has been pretty affordable for many years now.

Many food crops in Uganda grow easily in the country side with minimal farmer in-put, dependent on natural rain water and rudimentary farming knowledge systems. Food ,in Uganda is largely grown on subsistence production basis although commercial producers are increasing.

Even international food producers are buying large tracts of land in Uganda, clearing it, and setting up large scale food farms for export. Recently, a British company bought a large expanse of land in central Uganda to produce for export and evicted many natives on the land and the news story made the 'New York Times'.

Most staple food crops in Uganda such as bananas,potatoes,cassava and maize are ferried in by lorries and trucks from upcountry food farms to the capital Kampala and other urban centres for a profit by food traders who pay the fuel costs for transporting this food after paying a pittance for them from up country food farmers.

In Uganda, it is the middle- men who make the killing in the food business. They will buy a bunch of bananas from a village farmer at about one US dollar and sell it in the capital Kampala for about ten times that price. Yes, they have to buy diesel to transport the bananas but the profit margin seems a little too steep. Many think the food dealers in Uganda are part of the problem of rising food prices.

I began paying attention to food prices in July this year. Food prices at my local market began shooting up overnight. Inflation in Uganda including on food prices has reached 28% according the Uganda Bureau of Statistics. All of a sudden, prices doubled. The household food budget more than doubled as well and food which initially only took a small percentage of my household income took a much more uncomfortable percentage of my personal income. I started to take notice.

In Uganda there were widespread popular protests when food and fuel prices shot up. The Ugandan opposition took advantege and rode the wave. Government was slow to respond and blamed the prices increases on the rising cost of fuel which, they claimed, was external to the country, and they didn't have much control over. But the people were not convinced.

Uganda often projects itself as a food-secure country owing to the country being gifted by nature-a good tropical climate,regular rainfall and fertile soils. Uganda even aspires to be the food basket for the greater Eastern African region.

In fact,Uganda does actually export food to neighboring Kenya,South Sudan and Congo(DRC) and this has been part of the cause of high food prices in Uganda since regular Ugandans have to compete to buy locally-produced food with say, the Sudanese ,who are willing to pay much higher for food than Ugandans who have taken low food prices for granted.

Uganda is actually not yet food-secure as the Ugandan government would have us believe. Famine is perennially reported especially in the Northern part of the country and when disaster strikes parts of Uganda,such in the mountainous Bugisu region, food scarcity always results because of an absence of effective local food storage and preservation systems. Even Ugandan traditional food granaries of per-colonial times have diminished. Yet as a child, about twenty years ago, I used to seem some in my rural village.

As Pacey and Paine have suggested in their food production theory, one has to look at the entire supply chain of food production to diagnose the food-security challenge facing Uganda.

Uganda largely depends on natural rain water which of late is not reliable and climate change has changed weather patterns and Ugandan farmers can no longer plan for the planting season due to changing weather patterns. Uganda therefore needs to mainstream irrigation among local farmers instead of blaming climate for constant food shortages.

Land tenure systems in Uganda are not helping either. Unlike many countries of the world, the majority of Ugandans own in-herited small individual plots of land which is not conducive for large-scale mechanized agriculture. Food production is mainly at subsistence level with few industrial-commercial producers. Land reform is therefore another another potential remedy in Uganda.

Many other options such as embracing more scientific and economically efficient farming methods and systems could lead Uganda into achieving its ambition of being a food basket for the region.

In the mean time, below par food production levels, an absence of food preservation technologies,rising population rates,external demand for local food will continue to impact on food prices in Uganda.

Development economics for the rich industrialized world

I love Jeffrey Sachs. He got me interested in development economics with his best seller 'The End of Poverty'.

He writes in an accessible way and simpifies all that jargon into main street material. Economics for dummies, if you like.

Jeffrey Sachs is a renown economist especially in development circles for his proposals to end extreme poverty in Africa, Asia etc.

Lately, it appears his economics are needed in struggling economies like the US and in Europe.
He has written a new book, 'The Price of Civilization' and written op-eds in Newsweek and Time magazines about what is wrong with the American economy.

One of his arguments is that the US economy needs more taxes not tax cuts and that the US should invest in education and infrastructure. Invest in education? That sounds like a message he would give to a poor country like Uganda! Of late he has been on the circuit dispensing advice for the US economy when the poor world needs his attention more.

There was a time when the US didnt need advice from a professor who dabbles in ending extreme poverty but how things change.

And the europeans were desparate to retain the top seat at IMF not for prestige or power but out of real need for the IMF's help in their own countries! Now, all social studies students in Sub Saharan Africa know about IMF because it has always been there to dispense wisdom for failing economies. Even the World Bank comes in later. IMF is to dying economies what CPR is for dying patients.

This is indeed is the era of development economics for rich advanced countries! How times change.

Was Libyan Victory declared prematurely?

We all recall that banner: 'mission accomplished'.On an aircraft carrier behind former president George W Bush after the ouster of Saddam Hussein. They spoke too soon. And it appears in Libya too, the rebels spoke too soon.
It now is clear that Muammar Gaddafi is digging in for the long haul. Choosing a long-drawn out guerilla resistance to tire out his opponents.
The 'rebels' celebrated after the fall of Tripoli and now feel reluctant to follow up on their Tripoli victory and take Gaddafi's last standing strongholds. They celebrated the end of a six-month protracted struggle and now feel reluctant to fight on and finish the job.
They issued two ultimatums for the Gaddafi-held towns of Ben Walid and Sirte -for the loyalists to give up arms and even extended the deadline but with no result.
Their choice of a negotiated settlement with the Gaddafi loyalits seems to suggested a reluctant military stance in favour of a negotiated exit for the vanquished.
Clearly, the Gaddafi regime has fallen and there is not any real hope that he will forge a come back worth its name but prolonged guerilla warfare doesnt seem out of his reach.
He seems to have fled with huge sums of US dollars,euros and gold as reported by his generals who fled into Niger. So, the vanquished Gaddafi-machine still has access to some resources on which to launch a feeble guerilla campaign even when we all know it is a matter of time before Gaddafi is found.
It would appear that his early exit from Tripoli was a tactical rather than a clear military defeat. Instead of confronting the rebels head-on he prefered to engage them in a guerilla-style resistance, afterall, the NATO air strikes proved too decisive in favour of the rebel forces.

AIDS treatment in Africa at the crossroads with looming drugs ban

I attended an insightful intellectual property workshop in Kampala. It is amazing how much access to essential medicines such as ARVs has to do with intellectual property laws.
Would you believe for instance that come 2016, generic AIDS drugs which are consumed in Uganda (originally from India) will no longer be permitted owing to international trade agreements(TRIPS)?
The Ugandan parliament has shelved a bill(industrial properties bill) which would buy Uganda some time (under the flexibilities of TRIPS). Now Uganda faces the real possibility of having to buy ARVs from western pharmaceutical companies at prices beyond the reach of the overwhelming majority of Ugandans.
Generic drugs made AIDS treatment possible for millions in the developing world now that the grace period is running out for copy the formula of these drugs by pharmaceutical companies in low-income countries then the real prospect of drug stock outs becomes a real and present danger.
Can parliament wake up to its mandate before millions die out of their negliegnce?
Of course the whole international trade law is ranged against the poor world and serves 'big pharma' but our own negliegence may worsen matters.

Is the US really flat broke?

With the political stalement in the U.S., it is hard to believe that the US of A is in such debt. How did the most financially successful country in the history of the mankind reach such a point where the state doesnt have enough money to run and needs foreign borrowing to survive?
These are very strange times indeed. For Greece,may be. But then the U.S,?
The United States was a country founded on the ideals of self-reliance, individualism, the free market and it's embarasing and humuliating that the US finds itself in this position in the first place. The founding fathers would have surely chided the current generation of Americans.
Many argue that the very idea of capitalism led the US, and subsquently the rest of the world, in this state of affairs.
The US is now heavily indebted to China(most of all), to Japan,the UK, Germany and city-nation of Singapore!
The economic decline of the US is very astonishing especially given the speed with which it is being manifested. Even ten years ago,no one really saw this coming. We all knew that Americans love to live beyond their means and that they love the credit card but flat broke? That would have been pure fiction.
And the trouble for the world is that the US's financial woes dont end in Washington DC but extend to the rest of the world. The U.S. is still such a central player in the global economy.
The global financial crisis which started in 2008/2009 was actually sparked off by events on Wall street. Remember Lehman Brothers,Freddie Mae, AIG and the 'too big too fail' talk?
Industrial production is declining in the US as is export perfomance and it is hard to see that the US will regain its economic predominance pre-global financial crisis.
Its a difficult situation that President Obama finds himself-politically. He cant borrow to run government and the republicans wont let him increase taxes to finance the budget deficit. How in the hell is one supposed to run a government in these circunstances?
President Obama shouldnt be blamed for economic times that the US finds itself. In all fairness the root causes of the American malaise go back many years.

Can we treat our way out of the HIV epidemic?

Today afternoon I attended a very engaging and thoughtful debate. Can we treat our way out of the HIV epidemic?
The debate was at Makerere University's School of Public health where the presenters were up and coming Ugandan Centers for Disease Control (CDC) fellows. And so, the perspectives were largely Ugandan.
It was a debate akin to a secondary school debate with proponents and opponents for the motion of the day. And a very topical one indeed, seeing as it is ,that its thirty years since the onset of the HIV/AIDS pandemic which started way back in early 1980s among American gay couples.
Well, it emerged at the debate that there is scientific proof to show that the HIV/AIDS epidemic can be eliminated through a universal 'test and treat' approach where all are tested for HIV and those found positive are put on AIDS drugs.
Scientists have shown ,through modelling, that universal access to voluntary counselling and testing for HIV and putting all eligible patients on antiretroviral therapy(ART)can end the HIV epidemic while controlling for behaviour change and prevention efforts. The recent National Institutes of Health study among HIV discordant couples shows that starting early on ART can reduce the HIV transmission risk by 96% proving that that ART is both a treatment and prevention tool. An observational study conducted in Rakai,Uganda by Steven Reynolds which followed 51 discordant couples showed than none of them contracted HIV while the positive partner was on AIDS drugs. In Botswana, 90% coverage of prevention of Mother to Child Transmission(PMTCT)eliminated mother to child transmission of HIV altogether.
Those arguing that we cant treat our way out of the HIV epidemic hard a far easier task of the afternoon.
They simply made the case that we dont have the resources to treat all those in need of ART in terms of the financial,human,pharmacuetical and laboratory and other associated resource needs. That we dont have the health systems in which to dispense the drugs in Sub Saharan Africa even if they were suddenly available , in Uganda for instance, and that many countries have showed limited capacity for absorbing AIDS aid. The Uganda treasury recently returned 50 billion shillings of unutilized funds for AIDS drugs. The latest Auditor General's report shows that many AIDS drugs have expired in our national medicine stores and will have to be destroyed.
That the socio-cultural and behavioural drivers of the epidemic will continue to spread HIV even if all those eligible are put on anti AIDS drugs. The proponents though showed that those on ART have shown a 78% reduction in risky sexual behaviour. That ART drug adherence would be problematic and lead to an even more complicated situation of drug resistance due to posible low drug adhrence necesitating the use of second line drugs which a lot more expensive and not widely available in Sub Saharan Africa. And that stigma is a barrier to testing and treatment for HIV in Africa and would be a huge hurdle for universal coverage efforts.
And where will the finances come for treating all those in need of ART? How sustainable can it be fiscally speaking? Simple: the usual donors will pay for it! And by usual donors is meant PEPFAR,Global Fund, World Bank etc. In short, the west. This was the response of Sarah Nakku one of the proponents. Of course it is alot more complicated than that. She however argued that the west has a direct self-interest in combating HIV in Africa given the globalised world we live in. A traveling Ugandan can have breakfast in Kampala, lunch in London and dinner in New York.
And do we have health sytems within which to deliver these drugs in Sub Saharan Africa or Uganda at least? According to the proponents, yes we do. That an infrastructural skeleton exists in Uganda and all we have to do is beef it up. Read, pay doctors better salaries,equip hospitals with labs and drugs and that you dont necessarily need medical degrees to treat HIV since lower cadre health workers can be trained to do the job etc. Again a little simplistic if only for arguments's sake. And 80% of the generic AIDS drugs are from India ,from where Uganda an mot AIDS-affected countries get the ARVs, which has now asked to stop the production of generic drugs whose patents are help by western pharmaceutical firms.
And then the mainly academic audience weighed in. What if we targeted
specific epidemic drivers such as sex workers,truck drivers and fishermen instead od the entire population came a thoughtful question.
At the 2000 international AIDS conference in Durban South Africa, the west was skeptical about the abillity of African health systems to scale up access to ART because of fears of
drug adherence and weak health systems(again!) but see where we are now. In Uganda more than a half of those in need of ART have it. In other words, the west may be skeptical about mass treatment like it was before the scaling up of ART but it was proven it can be done. That it took truly global efforts to eliminate small pox,river blindness, polio etc and the same can be done for HIV/AIDS. And what is the alternative anway? The risk of not treating AIDS is a lot worse than actually treating it and studies show expenditure on ART is actually an investment in future generations.

The Chinese are coming!

Yesterday sunday evening I watched an insightful BBC documentary on China's rising interests in Africa. The reporter takes us on an intimate trip through Zambia,Tanzania and Congo DRC to see first-hand China's budgeoning interests in Africa.
From a large-scale chicken farmer in Zambia to a large scale mining concession in DRC Congo, Chinese businesses are becoming new economic players in Africa.
China's interests are driven by an insastiable apetite for raw materials for their industrial machine that has been described as 'super market to the world'.
China's interests in Africa provide a new lease of life economically to many destitute African countries which cant seem to refuse the irresistible Chinese offers.
In Zambia, the copper mines had been closed until the Chinese came calling. In DRC Congo, the mines were there for locals to exploit using stone-age era mining implements.
Clearly, China is giving a new lease of life to poor African countries. But it has not come without a price. The Chinese are not missionaries in Africa. Their interests are pragmatic. They need raw materials and markets for their products and alternatives for their billion-strong population.
There have been reports of human rights abuses at Chinese factories. There has been an influx of Chinese entreprenuers at scale that is attracting the ire of many small scale Zambian chicken farmers. Do the Chinese have to compete at this level as well in Africa?
The irony is not lost on a History major here. China a country branded as communist is beating the capitalists at their own game. It has outcompeted european industry on cost and now the small scale African trader is next.