Kampala, Uganda – January 11, 2025: Ugandan President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has called for intensified efforts to transform Africa’s agricultural sector, emphasising value addition, commercialisation, and regional integration.
Speaking at the Extraordinary AU Summit on the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) in Munyonyo, Kampala, President Museveni outlined Uganda’s progress and shared strategies to bolster agricultural productivity across the continent.
The President highlighted the need to shift from subsistence to commercial agriculture, citing the economic potential of intensive and extensive farming. “Uganda has achieved significant strides, with 67% of homesteads now engaged in the money economy compared to only 9% at independence,” he noted. He credited initiatives such as improved seed distribution, farmer sensitisation, and disease control for this progress.
He said that fully commercialising agriculture would achieve food security and homesteads income security.
The President said his government, in order to launch agriculture on the journey of social- economic transformation, away from the pre–capitalist, pre -socialist traditional mode to modern Commercial agriculture, politically mobilised, through sensitisation, the people to move away from working only for the stomach to commercial agriculture with calculation.
“By 2013, only 32% were in the money economy. That is why, I had to involve the Army to distribute seedlings. I was begging these villagers to get out of poverty.”
He saluted scientists for developing a long list of improved seeds: higher yields, disease-resistant, drought-resistant, etc.
He said sensitising farmers about the best agro-practices- spacing, mulching, water-conservation, etc, ensuring disease control through immunisation, spraying against pests, etc, ensuring food safety – against aflatoxins, etc, using fertilisers to restore the nutrients in the soil and discouraging land fragmentation were some of the measures to make African an economic superpower.
“With these measures, Africa will be a superpower economically. Since ancient times, this part of Africa had strong agriculture,” he stated, noting that a “begging Africa” is not the real Africa.
“This Africa of having no food and begging, is not the real Africa, but the colonial and neo-colonial Africa. It is a shame.”
Addressing Africa’s water challenges, Museveni advocated for innovative solutions, including desalinisation technologies and the potential utilization of the Congo River’s water resources.
He also called for environmental preservation, urging citizens to protect wetlands, forests, and water catchment areas.
The summit brought together heads of state, delegations, and agricultural experts from across Africa to chart the future of the continent’s agricultural development. President Museveni’s speech was met with wide acclaim for its visionary approach and practical recommendations.
As the summit concluded, leaders pledged to prioritise agricultural reforms to ensure food security, economic transformation, and sustainable development across Africa.
