Plan for the Modernisation of Agriculture (PMA)

Introduction

We know that more than 80% of the population in Uganda depends on agriculture production. For the rural population - more than the 85% of the total population - agriculture is the main way of making a living either as pure subsistence farmers or with a little semi-commercial farming. The majority of these subsistence farmers are poor people faced with many constraints that keep them poor such as lack of knowledge and skills, lack of credit, lack of information and knowledge about what to produce and how to produce to earn more money, HIV/AIDS, malaria, insecurity and poor yields. The most features of their poverty include: not having enough food, lack of money to meet health and education costs, low yields, few productive assets, lack of essential services, large families, lack of support from the communities they live in, and so on.

The Plan for Modernisation of Agriculture (PMA) - a central element of Uganda's poverty eradication strategy - is key to enabling the rural population to improve their livelihood and ensure food security through changing subsistence agriculture to doing farming as a business.

1. What is the Plan for the Modernisation of Agriculture?

The PMA is the plan of the Government of Uganda for fighting and eradicating poverty from Uganda through changing the current subsistence agriculture to doing farming as a business. Subsistence agriculture is producing mainly for home consumption while doing farming as a business (commercial agriculture) is producing with the objective of selling produce to earn money. Commercialising agriculture is hoped to result into many people being able to earn incomes to meet other needs, improve their lifestyle, create more jobs in rural areas, ensure food security and use natural resources sustainably.

How can we modernise our agriculture (PMA strategy)?

In order to modernise our agriculture we need to recognize the resources we already have such as land, good weather, and people and start by improving our agricultural production with what we already have. On one hand, government will be working closely with us by providing agricultural advisory services, health services, good roads, access to improved seed and knowledge and information about good storage methods, processing and marketing avenues.

Modernising agriculture will also need the support of local governments and therefore there is a need for empowering local authorities to ensure they have the necessary capacities to undertake those new challenges. It is expected that the local governments will deliver agricultural services and financing those, in collaboration with local and extern stakeholders, NGOs, CBOs and donor community as well as the private sector.
The Government will not be directly involved in production, processing or marketing agricultural products; rather, the focus will be on enabling and creating the environment for a more market oriented agriculture sector. Thus, the aim of the PMA is that through advisory service and knowledge building, farmers should be provided with skills to re-orient their production towards the market and the government should create an environment, through policies and regulation, which is required for the strong private sector involvement necessary to achieve the PMA goal of a modernised agriculture.

II. How will modernizing our agriculture eradicate poverty?

Modernising agriculture will eradicate poverty through first of all increased production thus ensuring that there is enough food for all our people at all times. Secondly, farmer access to knowledge, improved seed, and other relevant information will lead them to produce more high value crops that sell well in the market. Incomes from sale of produce will help farmers access other household necessities, pay health and education costs and have extra to spare. More jobs will be created in agriculture and agriculture-related activities such as transportation, storage, processing, marketing, and so on. At the end of the day, poverty will be eradicated as a result of:
Increase in incomes because of the rise in farm productivity
Increase in the share of agriculture that can be marketed and
Creation of many on-farm and off-farm jobs related to agriculture

III. What areas will Government spend money on under the PMA?

In order to support everyone involved in the process of modernizing our agriculture and eradicating poverty from Uganda, government will fund the following important areas:

Agricultural Research and Technology Development: The main aim of this component is to make research and technology address the needs of subsistence farmers. A decentralized client-oriented and participatory formulated research agenda to ensure more relevant and responsive advice will be formulated with all stakeholders. Research and technology outputs will be disseminated through Agricultural research and development centers (ARDCs) located in each of the 12 agro-ecological zones of Uganda, namely: Abii (Arua),Kachwekano(Kabale), Mukono (Mukono), Mbarara Stock Farm (Mbarara), Nabuin (Moroto), Kyembogo (Kabarole), Serere (Soroti),and Ikulwe (Iganga).
Agricultural advisory service. To coordinate service provision to subsistence farmers a National Agricultural Advisory Service (NAADS) has been created to provide advice on productivity enhancing technologies and soil conservation; knowledge and skills development; marketing, storage and agro-processing. The unit of planning and decision-making is the sub-county. The farmer forums which are expected to be formed in every sub-county will work with district and sub-county officials to contract private sector service providers for extension services. Farmers are expected to demand, manage and monitor the advisory services that meet their needs. The needs program is now being tested in 6 selected districts of Uganda.
Rural finance. Rural financial Intermediaries will be promoted and strengthened for provision of rural financial services on a viable and sustainable manner. The public sector will provide a legal and regulatory framework as well as capacity building for private sector involvement in Micro-finance institutions (MFI). However, government will be not be giving loans to farmers.
Agro-processing and marketing. Government is not going to provide free inputs or market farmer produce as it did in the past. No. Instead, inputs distribution, agro-processing and marketing are to be carried out by the private sector, while the public sector will set policies, remove barriers and put in place commercial laws as well as legal and regulatory framework. The Government will be responsible for providing supportive infrastructure, including rural electrification, which is critical to achieve the PMA goals.
Agricultural education. Human resource development to meet the challenges of transforming the agricultural sector are crucial. Agricultural education will be incorporated at all levels of the educational curricula and adult education will be supported under PMA. An agricultural education syllabus will be formulated that will promote agriculture as a business, discourage the use of agriculture as a punishment in schools, encourage farmer participation in agricultural knowledge and information exchange and recognize the role of indigenous knowledge in agriculture
Sustainable natural resource management. Implement the 1998 Land Act and develop a comprehensive land-use policy to facilitate development of land markets, efficient land-use (including irrigation) and management as well as administration.
Physical Infrastructure. One other thing government will spend its money on will be the development of basic physical infrastructure that will support the efforts to modernise agriculture. These include: roads, rural electrification, communication infrastructure and energy development programmes.

IV. When will the PMA be implemented?

The President has already launched PMA activities. This took place in the month of December 2000. The PMA Secretariat, which will be the main coordinating body has already been set up and its core staff have been recruited and the Non-Sectoral Conditional Grant has already be sent out to 24 participating districts.

Secondly, some of the components of the PMA like the NAADS are already in advanced stages of operationalisation and are soon going out to try farmer-driven advisory system.

V. Who will be involved in the PMA implementation and what will be their responsibilities?

There are 3 key players in the implementation of the PMA namely: private sector, local governments and Central Government. Others include civil society organizations and development partners. In the private sector, farmers are the largest group.

Private Sector. Includes subsistence farmers, traders, processors and service providers. They will be directly responsible for undertaking the key activities of operationalisation and success of the PMA which activities include: production, processing, storage and marketing of agricultural inputs and outputs. The private sector will also be responsible for the provision of advisory services through contracting.

Local governments (at district, sub-counties and parishes). Under the PMA, local governments will be responsible for a) coordinating production local government agricultural sector plans; b) technical supervision of agricultural advisory services; c) provision of services for the management and control of pests; d) land survey and administration; e) forestry and wetlands management; f) control of soil erosion, bush fires, local hunting and fishing; and g) licensing produce marketing.

Central Government. The core function of central government will be to continue to put in place good policies, laws and procedures for successful implementation of the PMA. The different ministries will handle the responsibilities for policies, laws and procedures that fall directly under their individual mandates.

Civil Society. These include NGOs, CBOs, individuals, unions, professional bodies and associations that are involved in the promotion and delivery of services. They are a very important interest group who will be involved, in collaboration with other stakeholders, in the process of planning, implementing, financing and delivery of services especially at lower levels of government.

Development Partners. Development partners in the PMA include international donors and bilateral partners/governments that support national development activities in the agricultural sector through grants and soft loans. They will play a key role in providing funding to key activities that government intends to fund under the PMA.

VI. What will I benefit from the PMA as individual?

The PMA offers many opportunities to individuals groups, companies and communities. The PMA encompasses very many sectors ranging from production, harvesting, storage, processing, marketing, transportation, inputs distribution, advisory services, natural resources management, physical infrastructure provision, construction, etc. Depending on what you do, you will benefit from the support and opportunities that the PMA offers. Take for example the case of someone who is a bicycle repairer; he/she will benefit from the PMA through the money paid to him by people who own bicycles. We know that many people in the rural areas use bicycle as one of the major ways of transporting produce to the nearest trading centre. So, indirectly, more money going into the hands of the bicycle owners means more money for the bicycle repairer who may benefit from increased business as a result of many farmers transporting their produce to town for sale.

For further information on the PMA, contact:
The Plan for the Modernisation of Agriculture Secretariat,
P.O. Box 102,
Entebbe, Uganda
Tel: +256 41 320123/320630
Fax: +256 41 320636

Last update: September 21, 2001