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By Steven Ariong
Government has done several attempts to tackle hunger in Karamoja, some of these attempts including, procuring of tractors, distribution of planting seeds, including those which mature quickly.
Indeed these approaches would be good but they have kept on leaving many farmers in the region in dire stress.
Whenever farmers in the region are given seeds, they rush to open up their gardens and do the planting but when crops reach the level of flowering, they all end up drying due to unreliable rainfalls.
The unreliable rainfalls of Karamoja didn’t start this year but it has been there over time, and the so called weather experts have been noticing this but either they are not interested in advising government on the best way to make food available in Karamoja or they just chill.
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This has made government to continue misusing resources trying to make Karamoja produce it’s own food.
Recently the whole ministry of Agriculture with their fleet went to Karamoja to launch tractor hire scheme where by each farmer is supposed to pay Shs50,000 to Shs70,000 per acre, surprisingly the farmers who are expected to pull Shs50,000 to Shs70,000 can not even afford one meal a day now getting that amount becomes hard for them to hire the tractors.
Another miscalculation here is that all the tractors to be hired by farmers are not enough, they are only 10 tractors meant to serve a big number of farmers who would love to use the tractors in the eight remaining districts of Karamoja.
While officiating at the launch of the tractor for hire in Nabilatuk district early this month, the minister for Agriculture Hon Kajiji Frank Tumwebaze and his team said all the tractors will first start ploughing gardens in Nabilatuk district before they are shifted to other districts.
Tumwebaze is not informed that Karamoja region has only one rainy season, by the time these tractors finish ploughing gardens in Nabilatuk it means rains are over and other eight districts will have missed.
Interestingly, ever since the minister of Agriculture launched the tractor scheme, rains have disappeared and the tractors are just parked at Nabilatuk three weeks now without work.
This website understands that this is all wastage of resources, bearing in mind that what the ministry of Agriculture is trying to introduce was there during the time when the first lady Janet Museveni was a minister for Karamoja affairs but it didn’t work.
During the time of Janet Museveni as Minister for Karamoja, she brought more than 100 tractors and ploughed thousands of gardens across the region, indeed, the crops were planted and germinated very well but as they were flowering, they all dried up due to scorching the sunshine.
All these efforts geared to making Karamoja food stable and would become meaningful if government accepts to listen several calls to establish irrigation system in Karamoja to make water available through out the year.
Mark Lemuko one of the Agriculturalist and a resident of Nakapiripirit district says government had procured many tractors for Karamoja districts but these tractors end up being taken by politicians and other civil servants who have money.
“This is not the first time government introducing tractor scheme in Karamoja but at the end of the day nothing is realized”- recounted Lemuko
Peter Lokut another resident says connecting water just from lake Opeta in Katakwi to Napak hill which is about 100kilometers would end famine in Karamoja. According to Lokut, Karamoja soils are very fertile and can produce enough food that can feed the entire country if water was available throughout.
Marry Nakiru, a student of Makerere pursuing a degree in animals health says government seems to be having an interest to keep Karamoja suffering so that to attract donors.
“We have talked in very many forum, that the problem of Karamoja is not soil but water, if government could only put irrigation system in the region all the problems of hunger and raiding would end but government is not listening”- Nakiru says
Mathew Mudong, a retired Agriculture official says the tractor scheme will not be sustainable adding that not everyone can afford it.
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