The visit to Victory Church in Ndebba, Kampala
The visit to Victory Church in Ndebba, Kampala.
Yesterday in the morning, I attended an agricultural workshop at victory church in Ndeeba in Kampala, The workshop which closes today 16th August 2019 is held annually and I was told this was their 7th. This has been my first time to attend it. Lots of presentation were made by different agricultural experts.
Officials from bank of Uganda also made presentations telling us about an agricultural finance facility with very low interest rates,i think within the range of 10-15%.
In the church park-yard where different exhibitors of agricultural stuff.
I was happy to see this, to me it seems like more and more Ugandans are finally waking up from sleep and taking agriculture seriously. According to recent figures from the Uganda bureau of statistics, Uganda exports or receives $2.5 billion and Imports $4.5 billion. Our shortfall is $2 billion. If we were a business, we would be a loss-making one. Now, how are we going to bridge that gap if we are not engaging in production and fair trade with other countries?
Where will the food to feed the over 40 million Ugandans come from? And is it a good idea to continue importing junk food from China and other countries when we can easily grow our own?
If we produced little and lived a simple life that would be okay. But we don’t produce much and yet want to live a comfortable life based on imported food and other stuff (like cars,TVs,Phones, clothes, electronics, etc),then what happens next? Our shillings continue losing value.
Our people need to be mobilized to for example grow mangos on a large scale, may be even set up a mango processing/value addition plant .That way, some of us will stop buying imported mango juice and opt for this locally made, this would drive the local revenues up and also provide employment to our people.
Blessings – Edward
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