President Yoweri Museveni has called on religious leaders across the different denominations to join hands with government to encourage farmers to adopt the commercial model of agriculture as a way to raise income.
The President on Friday hosted several religious leaders under their umbrella organisation, the Inter Religious Council of Uganda on farms in Ibanda and Kiruhura districts.
The clergymen were led by Archbishop Cyprian Lwanga of Kampala Archdiocese.
In his appeal to the religious leaders at a luncheon later held at the President’s country home in Rwakitura, Museveni asked them to use the church as a platform to spread the gospel of wealth creation through effective utilization of small land holdings.
Quoting a Biblical verse in Matthew 5:16, which reads “Let your light so shine before men, that they see your good deeds and praise your father who is in heaven”, Museveni said it was sinful for one to live among poor people, and let them remain poor, when he or she has the knowledge to help them transform.
It is for this reason, he said, that after completing his Senior Six in 1966, he was inspired to start a campaign in Western Uganda to discourage nomadisim because it was not economically viable.
“That is how we have been able to transform these nomads into commercial dairy farmers, and from your tour, you can testify that there has been economic transformation in this area,” Museveni told the visiting delegation of religious leaders including Archbishop of Church of Uganda, Rt Rev Stanley Ntagali and Mufti of Uganda, Sheikh Shaban Ramadhan Mubajje.
He said that the cattle farmers have been taught to keep a few cattle that have high milk yields instead of keeping a large herd of the indigenous Ankole cows that had low milk yields.
“We have extended this campaign to agriculturalists, teaching them to use the four acre model, which discourages subsistence agriculture and encourages farmers to engage in enterprises that generate income,” he added.
The President further asked the church to amplify the campaign against land fragmentation which is often caused by the customary practice of bequeathing land to family members.
“Instead, convert this to shares, so that the children share proceeds from what is produced on the land,” he said, adding that subdivision of land into small pieces is economically unviable.
