Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Uganda’s food security future looking bleak

Ephraim Kasozi in the Daily Monitor (Uganda): Uganda should brace for more devastating effects of drought in the months of May and June. Mr Moses Muwanga, the chief executive officer of the National Organic Agriculture Movement of Uganda says the condition is not yet severe for crop farmers because there are still food stocks available. “We (farmers) are supposed to be planting because ideally it is normally raining around this season to ensure harvest for early growing crops like beans.

“We are currently unable to plant since it is a dry season but the shortage of food will be felt around May-June after the stocks are exploited,” says Mr Muwanga.
He added that the country will experience shortage mainly of annual crops like bananas, coffee and pineapples.

“For this situation, the effects will be different in various areas. For crops like pineapples and coffee, they are flowering but because of the dry season, the flowers will wither and as a result they will not bear fruit causing a shortage during the would be harvest season,” says Mr Muwanga who was not certain how much impact the drought would cause.

He was, however, quick to add that the shortage of food would result in shortage of money especially for the populations that depend entirely on agriculture….

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