Sometime in 2015, while travelling with my former boss and now the Member of Parliament representing Older Persons of Eastern Uganda, Mr Orwono Opondo, we had my mind in a way that arose to revealing.
We were on a trip to Arua City. As we traversed the plains and valleys of Nwayo District, en route to Packwach, I momentarily went silent as I admired the green pastures that form the vast lands that define the whole of northern Uganda. Nwoya offers an expansive, sweeping landscape defined by wide-open savanna plains and a draught, boundless horizon.
The flat and gently rolling plains stretch as far as the eye can see, offering uninterrupted views of vast African skies. Mr Opondo looked at me and said he knew what was going on in my mind: ‘You must be envying these abundant pastures and wishing you could bring your cows to graze these beautiful, vast lands,’ he said. He was dead right.
A typical cattle farmer will do all it takes to have his cows feed on the best pastures in the land. Exactly the reason why the Balaalo keep returning to northern Uganda every time they are chased. The temptation of the good grazing lands in these areas is beyond control. Therefore, the only way to curtail the Balaalo invasion again is to occupy the beautiful grazing lands with the great Zebu cows.
Northern Uganda is traditionally a cattle-keeping corridor, and it used to have many cows before the civil war collapsed that type of farming in the 1990s. The good news is that the government has begun cattle restocking in northern Uganda. The restocking is taking place in the three sub-regions of Acholi, Lango and Teso.
According to the Permanent Secretary of the Prime Minister, Mr Alex Kakooza, so far 80 percent of the Shs80 billion earmarked for this programme has been given to the various beneficiaries. This is a very good move, if indeed the beneficiaries restock their cattle and do not divert the money into consumptive behaviour or patterns.
More comforting is the fact that the government extended the programme from the originally planned five years to 10 years to ensure that every eligible household in war-affected communities eventually receives livestock.
Therefore, political actors in the greater north must close monitoring the restocking programmes, so that farmers are fully occupying their vast lands. Unutilised chunks of land will always attract the appetite of the marauding Balaalo from wherever. Remember, Uganda has another group of marauding cattle keepers from north-eastern Uganda-the Karimojong. These can’t stop moving into the greater north, as long as they keep seeing those rich, green pastures unutilised.
Make no mistake, northern Uganda is the most ideal place for cattle ranching. The region falls primarily under the savanna grassland zone, which produces an abundance of high-quality biomass for re-grazers to thrive. It also has a type of grass known as Hood Grass. This is one of the dominant native species across the Acholi, Lango and West Nile. It grows tall, is highly palatable to calves, and provides critical protein required for quick fattening.
Due to the grass species that grow so aggressively in the wild, an economic shift is happening. Agricultural entrepreneurs in northern Uganda are moving away from treating grass as ‘wild bush’ and are instead harvesting and exporting it as hay. Regions like West Nile have also seen massive success introducing commercial varieties such as Super Napier Grass to boost local dairy and beef yields. Therefore, most farmers across the country are beginning to look for these nutritious grasses for livestock farming and are purchasing them for commercial hay and silage business.
Finally, mixed farming is what will offer an economic paradigm shift for people of northern Uganda. Seasonal harvesting of grass and crops can only bring in a good sum of cash, but can only be harvested once or twice a year. Livestock farming, on the other hand, provides direct income, food security and value-added agricultural products that drive local and national economies.