Prime
Land fragmentation a major draw back
Michael Ssali
What you need to know:
- Our population is said to be the fastest increasing in the whole wide world after that of Niger and Mayotte
Our population is said to be the fastest increasing in the whole wide world after that of Niger and Mayotte (prb.org). Our cultural norms dictate that when the head of a household dies, his or her land is divided among the children.
One of the main handicaps holding down agriculture in Uganda is lack of a clear family planning policy. Given the enormous natural resources that we are endowed with it is not correct to consider our country as poor.
We have a lot of fresh water, fertile soil, and fairly well distributed rainfall. We may however be described as underdeveloped and it is because of this that we may be referred to as poor.
In other words we are poor because we are underdeveloped. Our poverty will only be eradicated by development which will be caused by, education, and adoption of clear development strategies.
We have to understand that our resources are limited and that our country’s boundaries are not likely to expand, if ever at all. We must learn how to use our resources in order to create wealth.
One of our key strategies to achieve development is agriculture. It is the reason all our leaders emphasize agriculture, in programs like Parish Development Model (PMD), Emyoga, Operation Wealth Creation (OWC), Bonna Bagaggawale, Mwanyi Terimba, among others. But, how much land is available to our people for agriculture? The majority of households practice agriculture on small plots of land ranging from half an acre to four acres. Yet our population increase rate is among the highest on the globe, at the fertility rate of 5.6 children per woman, according to the Washington based Population Reference Bureau.
Our population is said to be the fastest increasing in the whole wide world after that of Niger and Mayotte (prb.org). Our cultural norms dictate that when the head of a household dies, his or her land is divided among the children. This means the small farms become smaller, all the time, resulting in over cultivation and soil depletion.
Farmers operating on such small plots of land usually don’t have the capacity to buy fertilisers to sustain soil fertility. They cannot buy quality seeds and they hardly produce enough food to eat. They have poor housing and a host of other problems.
Our leaders only talk to them about one new poverty eradication program after another without warning them about the folly of producing more children and marrying more wives than they can support.
A few people nowadays own three or more small plots purchased in different villages and must walk or ride long distances to work in the gardens.
Mr Michael Ssali is a veteran journalist,
[email protected]
