bers . Perhaps most significant was that the vaccination was free of charge . Had the Americans been charging money , fewer people would have turned up . Few people in rural areas where the majority are subsistence farmers , have much disposable cash and can afford paid-for services .
All this brought to mind things that are usually said about agriculture in Africa , but which are rarely cognisant of the realities of rural life , and of local-level governance . Hardly a day goes by without someone in a position of power or authority mentioning how agriculture is “ the biggest employer ” and “ the backbone of our economy ”. However , in Africa agriculture as an employer and as a generator of income performs way below its potential . There are several reasons for this , lack of intentionality being key . Take the example of extension services . Almost everywhere , these services suffer significant neglect . In addition to neglect , where services are available , however limited , they tend to be priced beyond what ordinary farmers farming mainly for subsistence can afford on an on-going basis . The consequences of this are clear and visible . Many years ago , I asked a farmer in a district not so far away from Kampala : “ when did you last see or interact with an agricultural extensionist ( omulimisa )?” As far as he could remember , it was nearly 30 years before he and I met in his village , where I was looking at the impact of decentralising power , resources and responsibility for service delivery from the national government to elected local authorities .
The absence of extensionists or the un-affordably high cost of their services means that few small- to medium scale farmers are unable to respond appropriately to disease and pest infestations that reduce productivity . When diseases or pests strike , farmers may not respond in good time to allow for appropriate intervention to make the necessary difference . And even when they respond in time , critical advice regarding appropriate response is usually lacking . There are simply too few extensionists to go round , and the services of those that are self-employed are too expensive for poor farmers . For farmers engaged in animal husbandry , disease outbreaks are all too common . The most common diseases are those that are easily preventable through vaccination or the administration of de-wormers and acaricides . There is a time , in Uganda at least , when communal cattle dips providing free services guaranteed that farmers ’ animals were protected . It is many years since these disappeared .
Clearly , at the centre of the poor performance of agriculture in Africa and the key explanation for farmers getting stuck in poverty is politics . Politicians simply lack the incentives to focus on agriculture with the kind of intentionality that their Asian counterparts did , at a time when poverty posed a major political threat to the elites in power and was also an existential threat to anti-communist regimes of the time . It is therefore perhaps not farfetched to argue that agriculture in Africa will not receive the attention it deserves until its continued neglect becomes a political threat for power holders and a potential source of destabilisation for sitting governments . ❧ ❧ ❧
Dr Frederick Golooba- Mutebi is a Ugandan-Rwandan independent researcher and former academic .
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