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NRM has not delivered on food security and self-sufficiency
PART I
It is now exactly two years into President Museveni’s
third term, having been sworn in on May 12, 2006. As part
of the media focus on the NRM’s achievements vis-a-vis
the ruling party manifesto, we publish a well-researched
critique of the NRM penned by US-based Ugandan researcher,
ERICK KASHAMBUZI.
During the 2006 New York Convention of Ugandans living in
North America, questions were raised on whether the National
Resistance Movement (NRM) had abandoned the promises it
made in the Ten-Point Programme, later expanded to 15 points.
Since these questions were raised during a discussion of
my paper on The Political Economy of Food and Nutrition
Security in Uganda, I decided to check on NRM’s record.
While still in the bush between 1981 and 1985, the NRM published
extensively about what was wrong with Milton Obote’s
government. They proposed corrective measures the NRM would
introduce once it captured power, which it did in January
1986.
In 1985, the NRM chairman, Yoweri Museveni, published an
article on the Ten-Point Programme, laying out a political
basis for a nationwide coalition of political and social
forces that would bring a new and better future for the
long-suffering people of Uganda.
In 1998, the Ten-Point Programme was appropriately expanded
to 15 points: 1. Restoration of democracy; 2. Restoration
of security; 3. Consolidation of national unity and elimination
of all forms of sectarianism; 4. Defending and consolidating
national independence; 5. Building an independent, integrated
and self-sustaining national economy; 6. Restoration and
improvement of social services and rehabilitation of war-ravaged
areas; 7. Elimination of corruption and the misuse of power;
8. Redressing errors that have resulted in the dislocation
of some sections of the population; 9. Co-operation with
other African countries; 10. Following an economic strategy
of a mixed economy; 11. Financing of public infrastructure
using internal borrowing and creation of employment in the
country; 12. Focused human resource development and capacity
building in the technical and public service sector; 13.
Preservation and development of our culture; 14. Consolidation
of programmes which are responsive to gender and marginalised
groups; and 15. Environmental protection and management.
Fundamental change
At his first swearing-in ceremony on January 29, 1986,
President Museveni said, “No one should think that
what is happening today is a mere change of guards: it is
a fundamental change...in the politics of our country. In
Africa, we have seen so many changes that change, as such,
is nothing short of mere turmoil. We have had one group
getting rid of another, only for it to turn out to be worse
than the group it displaced. Please do not count us in that
group of people. The National Resistance Movement is a clear-headed
movement with clear objectives and a good membership…
“Past regimes have used sectarianism to divide people
along religious and tribal lines. But why should religion
be considered a political matter? … Politics is about
the provision of roads, water, drugs in hospitals and schools
for children...”
Since 1986, NRM officials have talked and written passionately
about their determination to end the colonial economic system
inherited at independence in 1962 whereby Uganda exported
raw materials in exchange for manufactured products such
as perfumes, whiskey and Mercedes Benzes, and produced export
crops at the expense of food stuffs for domestic consumption.
In short, Uganda was consuming what it did not produce and
producing what it did not consume.
They preached about the urgent need to transform Uganda
from medieval conditions of peasant subsistence economy
characterised by primitive technology and low productivity,
poor feeding, poor housing and poor clothing to a modern
industrial economy and a middle class society.
They condemned previous regimes for dividing the country
and misusing public funds such as flying in executive jets
or importing expensive furniture, in one case to the tune
of British pounds 500,000 for one house, while 90 percent
of Ugandans had no shoes.
“We want our people to be able to afford shoes. The
Honourable Excellency who is going to the United Nations
in executive jets, but has a population at home of 90 percent
walking bare foot, is nothing but a pathetic spectacle,”
said Museveni in 1989.
They also condemned the previous regimes for focusing on
exports at the expense of growing nutritious crops to meet
food security needs which resulted in low intake of calories
and proteins – hence under-nutrition.
So has the NRM walked the talk? Let’s us consider
the most basic of human needs, food. Inadequate diet, especially
in the early years of life, impairs physical and mental
development.
The NRM observed aptly that Uganda, with its abundant agricultural,
animal and fishery resources, was in a position to provide
an adequate and balanced diet for every Ugandan. However,
because of a focus on export crops, the production of nutritious
foodstuffs for domestic consumption had been neglected with
the result that many Ugandans were suffering from nutritional
deficiencies.
The NRM used, as an example of neglect, the production
of millet. “Research findings in the nutritive value
of different crops show that millet is a very nutritious
food … in protein and carbohydrate content. It is
easily storable and transportable and could be milled, packed
and sold [and yet its production had been neglected]…
There is need, therefore, to re-orient the economy in such
a way that food production, while not abandoning the production
of cash-crops needed in foreign market, is given due emphasis…The
current phenomenon of threatened mass-starvation in Africa
is more of a commentary on the post-independence African
leaders than on the droughts,” Museveni said in 1985.
Ignored millet
Other studies have confirmed the nutritional value of millet.
For example, the National Research Council in the United
States has reported that finger millet, which probably originated
in Ethiopia and Uganda, has been grossly neglected compared
to the research lavished on wheat, rice and maize.
The Council recommended that the world’s attitude
towards finger millet must be reversed.
“Of all major cereals, this crop is one of the most
nutritious. Indeed, some varieties appear to have high levels
of menthionine, an amino acid lacking in the diets of hundreds
of millions of the poor who live on starchy foods such as
cassava and plantains.
“Outsiders have long marveled at how people in Uganda
and southern Sudan could develop such strapping physiques
and work as hard as they do on just one meal a day. Finger
millet seems to be the main reason” (National Research
Council, 1996).
How does the production and consumption of millet compare
with the less nutritious cassava, maize and plantains?
According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation, Uganda
produces 1,200,000 tons of maize; 5,400,000 tons of cassava,
compared to 584,000 tons of millet and 395,000 tons of sorghum
(FAO, 2004).
Therefore, the promise of reversing the consumption of less
nutritious food stuffs has not been kept since the production
of nutritious millet and sorghum is lagging far behind non-nutritious
maize, cassava and plantains, which means that an increasing
number of households are eating the latter.
While addressing the 26th OAU summit on July 9, 1990, President
Museveni advised that “While ensuring our increased
participation in the export process, we should also ensure
self–sufficiency so that we are not as prone to external
shocks as has been the case so far. We should produce for
export but we should also produce for self-sufficiency”.
Notwithstanding the sound advice, earlier in the year on
January 26, 1990, while addressing the nation during the
celebration of the fourth anniversary of the NRM administration,
President Museveni had said:
“As we enter the 2nd phase of our revolution, we
are going to shift our common policy orientation from focusing
on short-term measures of rehabilitation towards long-term
measures aimed at restructuring the economy. This is to
achieve our fundamental objectives of creating an integrated,
self-sustaining, independent national economy in a secure
economic environment.
“The major strategy is to achieve an export-led growth.
This means that projects aimed at promoting and diversifying
exports will be given first priority so that we can earn
enough foreign exchange that will enable us to acquire the
badly needed foreign technology”.
This was a major policy departure, especially as the new
policy encouraged the production and export of foodstuffs
previously produced for domestic consumption.
These non-traditional exports diverted nutritious beans,
sesame and fish, among others, from domestic to export markets.
Export frenzy
The NRM manifesto for the 2006 elections proudly reports
that the export of fish rose from 25,525 tons in 2002 to
31,808 tons in 2004; maize from 59,642 tons in 2002 to 90,576
tons in 2004; beans from 10,753 tons in 2002 to 26,233 tons
in 2004; and sesame from 1,380 tons in 2002 to 4,283 tons
in 2004.
It is important to remind ourselves that fisheries were
developed by colonial authorities to provide an affordable
source of protein for low income families. Therefore, the
export particularly of fish and beans, has deprived many
households of affordable sources of protein which is lacking
in cassava, maize and plantains. Indeed, it has been reported
that some people have resorted to eating discarded bones
from fish factories.
The increasing growing of cut flowers in areas around towns
has taken up land previously used to grow fruits and vegetables
for urban consumption. Therefore, increasingly, Ugandans
are eating cassava with low nutritional value, leading to
high levels of nutritional deficiencies, including neurological
abnormalities.
Studies conducted in the food surplus western region in
the 1990s found high levels of under-nutrition with 61.3
percent in Kabale, 60 percent in Rukungiri, 58.1 percent
in Bushenyi and 51.5 percent in Mbarara, because farmers
are selling most of the foodstuffs, especially the nutritious
ones such as beans, fish and milk.
According to the World Food Programme (WFP), Uganda is
among the countries that sell a lot of food to that Organisation.
In fact, “Uganda was the country where WFP procured
the most in value terms [$41.2 million] in 2006” (WFP,
2006).
While contributing to the commercialisation of the economy,
the emphasis on export and cash-based agricultural policies
have dealt a heavy blow to food security in Uganda.
The United Nations Millennium Project report on hunger (2005)
has categorised Uganda as a hunger ‘hotspot’,
meaning that hunger is persistent and severe.
Because of these adverse developments, Uganda has become
a country in need of food assistance, as reported by the
FAO. Accordingly, donor food deliveries increased from 80,000
tons of cereals in 2001 to 257,000 tons in 2004. Thus, the
NRM administration’s promise to meet food security
and national food self-sufficiency has not been met.
What about other promises? The promises of creating an
independent, integrated and self-sustaining economy that
would end external debts, illiteracy, ill-health, poor housing,
dirty drinking water, poor nutrition, enable every Ugandan
to afford shoes and of transform a peasant subsistence economy,
have not been fulfilled.
Furthermore, the focus on mass education that has churned
out many functionally illiterate graduates is not likely
to transform Uganda into a technologically and knowledge–based
economy and society that the NRM promised.
Environmental protection and the promised irrigation to
tame the impact of droughts and productive and remunerative
employment to render poverty history, thereby enabling Ugandans
to afford a balanced diet, good health and good education
and adequate housing and decent clothing, as well as narrowing
the income gap between classes and regions, have yet to
materialise after more than 20 years of the NRM administration.
Corruption and sectarianism, rather than declining, seem
to be moving in the opposite direction. The very person
who criticised leaders of poor countries for flying around
the world in expensive jets while their people have no shoes
is the one purchasing a $48 million-dollar luxury jet, after
buying one for $35 in 2000 (BBC, 2007). He is also the same
person who has no scruples about using the presidential
jet at a cost of anywhere between $50,000 and 170,000 (The
Telegraph, 2003) to fly a family member to deliver in a
Germany hospital, while ordinary citizens can’t get
even malaria medicines in local hospitals.
The division of the country into tiny entities that are
not economically viable, mostly along tribal lines, before
elections does not bode well for national unity.
Can these trends be reversed, or it is too late? This is
the question we shall consider next week.
Continues next week…
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