Prime
Farming: Land fragmentation is bad
Michael Ssali
What you need to know:
- Land fragmentation is a problem and, as the farming plots get more sub-divided, crop production reduces due to over cultivation.
One question that ought to be asked as we ponder about achieving food security and up-scaling agricultural production is whether the country’s population is well matched with the available resources.
This requires a clear population policy to guide family planning so that we do not put too much strain on the country’s resources. We might teach agriculture in schools and talk passionately about the advantages of the youth taking up farming, but is there enough land for all the interested young people to set up farms? Do those engaged in agriculture today produce sufficient and affordable food for everybody to eat a balanced diet all the time?
A population that is higher than the available resources leads to scrambling for whatever little there is including land and other resources.
Land fragmentation becomes a problem and, as the farming plots get more and more sub-divided, crop production reduces due to over cultivation and soil depletion. Food becomes scarce and expensive, resulting in under nutrition which is a health problem and a national financial burden.
Any agricultural poverty reduction program should include the question of how many people are in a homestead and how large its farming space is. The amount of money allocated to a homestead in a program such as Parish Development Model or Emyooga should not be uniform because family sizes vary so widely in our communities.
Support of two million shillings to a family where a man has two wives and twelve children on one acre might not be of as much help as in the case of another family where a man has one wife and three children farming on one acre.
Over population which is the situation where the number of people living in a given area is higher than the available resources often leads to environmental degradation. Necessity knows no law. To produce food and to build shelter people, out of dire need, cut down natural forests and grow crops in wetlands apart from building settlements there. Such people won’t listen to anybody talking about preservation of natural forests and wetlands as a measure of climate change mitigation.
In countries where food security is a guarantee people own large farms and use tractors and combine harvesters. They have smaller, well planned families. Here small farms are getting smaller, women have more babies, and agriculture is tied to simple hand tools.
Mr Michael Ssali is a veteran journalist,
[email protected]
