We are in a season when politicians are making pledges that they will very likely find quite hard to fulfil. We have politicians who are even promising cash grants to villages and parishes to fight poverty. In their minds, they think most people are poor because they lack capital to start gainful farming, or to open up a restaurant or any other business. Yet it is not even true that everybody really aspires to be rich. It is the reason that there are always people who spend most of their time at alcohol selling joints or in shopping centres just playing patience and mweso.
Since the majority of the people in rural areas are farmers it is good that in today’s sharing we give a thought to some of their other big needs besides the much talked about injection of startup capital. The government can boost agricultural production by enhancing technical and policy guidelines through agricultural services extension officers.
For example, how far have we implemented the don’ts and dos of the National Coffee Act, 2021? It forbids harvesting green coffee cherries. It forbids drying coffee on the bare ground. It forbids people to engage in coffee trading without license. However, a perusal of the police crime report of 2024 does not give any figures of farmers that were arrested for picking green coffee cherries or drying their coffee on the bare ground.
The National Coffee Act 2021 was passed for a purpose ‘to facilitate the development of a competitive, participatory and sustainable coffee subsector in accordance with the National Coffee Policy, 2013.’ It was intended to promote good practices in all the activities in the coffee value chain including on-farm and off-farm activities. If the farmers are forced by law to produce good quality coffee, they will enjoy much higher prices for their product and they will more easily get out of poverty.
One of the many other ways to help farmers improve their incomes, apart from often futile cash loans, is to enforce agricultural production laws such as the National Coffee Act 2021. Another way to help farmers is to teach them about soil fertility conservation and the utilization of land resources. We must facilitate and enhance agricultural extension services by ensuring that the area agricultural extension officers’ transport allowances and any other dues are promptly paid. The farmers need education about organic farming practices and how to use agricultural chemicals such as fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides.