Prime
Different activities on different small farms
Michael Ssali
What you need to know:
- We are often compelled to observe traditions and cultural practices that prohibit us to grow some crops and to keep animals that would fetch more money than we get from the crops we grow and the animals we keep.
As we struggle to overcome poverty and hunger through farming we must think about the different challenges that impede our progress. We work on small plots of land using simple tools such as hoes and axes.
We are often compelled to observe traditions and cultural practices that prohibit us to grow some crops and to keep animals that would fetch more money than we get from the crops we grow and the animals we keep.
For example, in some cultures by tradition fish is not eaten. It is therefore difficult to rear fish in such communities.
Without local consumption of fish only very few people would have the courage to make fish ponds for rearing it especially as it would require quick transportation to far away markets.
Keeping pigs and eating pork is taboo among Muslims and some tribes. Yet pork has a big market and pig keeping is quite paying.
Pig manure is very good for crop production. But this is not an economic activity to be practiced by Muslims or in communities which traditionally don’t eat pork.
It is only recently that some cultures allowed their women to eat chicken and eggs.
The growing of some crops such as vanilla or tea requires some training. This means that not every Dick, Tom, and Hurry can easily engage in such economic activity.
Due to the small size of our farms we do all the work ourselves using simple tools.
A small farm normally yields just enough for the family to consume and hardly any extra food for sale.
The farms are small, the yields are small, and the profits are small.
Small-scale farmers continue to subdivide their plots and to distribute them among their offspring, according to traditional inheritance regulations.
Small farms become smaller and less sustainable as it becomes harder for the farmers to afford inputs such as quality seeds, fertilisers, and pesticides.
There is general lack of public awareness among the farmers particularly in rural areas about the wisdom of family planning.
Our agriculture is clearly directed more towards smaller and smaller farms with decreasing need for sophisticated tools and technologies.
The majority of our people are engaged in subsistence farming which compares poorly with countries where only as little as five percent of the population are into farming and working on large farms using tractors and computerised combine harvesters.
Mr Michael Ssali is a veteran journalist,
