President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni on Thursday, July 25, 2024, held a fruitful meeting with Mr. Yohei Sasakawa, the Chairman of Nippon Foundation.
Based in Tokyo, Japan, the Nippon Foundation is a private, non-profit foundation established in 1962 for the purpose of carrying out philanthropic activities, using revenue from motorboat racing.
During the meeting, President Museveni welcomed Mr. Sasakawa for coming to Uganda and thanked him for the great work he is doing in the East African country.
“I remember when you first came here with the Nobel Prize winner and Mr. Jimmy Carter. I thank you so much for the great work you have done,” he said.
President Museveni also commended Mr. Sasakawa for the support he has been offering to ensure the development of Uganda’s agricultural sector.
“Production can go up to 10 times by use of fertilisers and irrigation. The potential here is very huge and I encourage you to continue doing your work, especially linking up with our Parish Development Model (PDM) program,” the President urged.
President Museveni further noted that the problem of Uganda is not really poverty and that the citizens just need to change their way of life.
“Our struggle from 1986 was to get our people in the money economy from the pre-capitalist mode of economy. Now, based on the census we did, 61 percent of the homesteads are in the money economy and 39 percent are still outside the money economy,” he said.
“Therefore, the PDM is to make sure that all the homesteads join the money economy through the four sectors; commercial agriculture, manufacturing and artisanship, services and ICT. The PDM generally deals with commercial agriculture and value addition.”
President Museveni also encouraged Mr. Sasakawa and his team that as they offer support to farmers, they should sensitise them to grow upland rice as opposed to growing rice in swamps that damage the natural resource.
The President also expressed gratitude to Mr. Sasakawa for his idea of increasing productivity in the Karamoja sub-region by improving the soil fertility in the area.
“I’m happy with Mr. Sasakawa’s emphasis on the health of the soil because sometimes we just get lost trying to use fertilisers without taking care to know the problem of each area. You should manufacture useful and safe fertilisers and you should give us more ideas in this area and where you can give us more direct support, please do so.”
He also revealed that the country has been able to develop the dairy industry and it’s going to do the same to other agricultural products like coffee and beef.
On his part, Mr. Sasakawa said he was happy to see President Museveni in good health once again after some good years.
He also pledged to offer more support to Ugandan farmers to increase productivity and ensure food security.
“Thank you, Your Excellency, for your strong leadership, we do see great potential in Uganda’s agriculture sector. We’re very much committed in giving proactive support to the farmers here in Uganda because it is such a great idea not to be 100 percent reliant on imports so it is very important that you have an environment that will be able to make you self-sufficient which I think is a great weight to achieve through agriculture,” Mr. Sasakawa said.
“The Islamic Development Bank is also showing a great interest in the agricultural sector here in Uganda and it’s looking forward to collaborating with the government of Uganda so that it’s able to contribute to the further cooperation for the betterment of the sector in the country.”