Of Uganda’s  animal farmers

Does life imitate art, or is art imitating life? English playwright William Shakespeare would probably ask through his play, Hamlet (circa 1600).
According to a story that appeared in Daily Monitor on Monday, this Hamletian question took on fresh significance.

It was reported that a group of tea farmers in Kanungu District began uprooting their plantations due to persistently low crop prices.
The farmers in Kayonza Sub-county, Buhoma Town Council, Butogota Town Council, Mpungu Sub-county, and Kyeshero Sub-county were among those uprooting their crops.

Farmers allege that the price of green tea leaves has plummeted from Shs500 to Shs200 per kilogramme, a relative pittance. Consequently, due to the high cost of plucking, fertiliser application, and plantation maintenance in general, their motivation to continue farming has ebbed. 
They thus uprooted their plantations.

As the farmers appeal to Parliament for help, let us examine the question of whether life imitates art or vice versa. 
Between 1928 and 1940, the Soviet Union (a Communist transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991) introduced collectivised farms as part of its first Five-Year Plan under the proto-Putin, Joseph Stalin. 
The aim of the Soviet economic planners was to integrate individual landholdings and labour into directly state-controlled farms: Kolkhozes and Sovkhozes. 
To cut to the chase, the peasants who were to be dragooned into these nominally collectively-owned farms, the Kulaks, or rich peasants, rebelled.

They then started destroying their crops intended for consumption by factory workers, instead of better prices for themselves. 
In George Orwell’s novel Animal Farm, the hens imitate the Kulaks. They, in an act of flagrant sabotage similar to the Kulaks, destroyed all of their eggs to rebel against Napoleon (the pig who represented Stalin). 

In Animal Farm, the hens represent the fight to keep what was rightfully theirs as the Kulaks did after the Russian Revolution when Stalin’s idea, for lack of a better word, of collectivism was established. 
Similarly, the farmers in Kanungu uprooted their plantations to keep what is theirs. For without better prices, they stand to lose their livelihoods.

We thus see art imitating life with the hens’ (mis)behaviour mirroring the presumed sabotage of the Kulaks. And we also see life imitating art as our Kanungu farmers could easily be our local representation of Orwellian hens.

Like Shakespeare’s Hamlet, we are ambivalent about which is which. 
Again, as life takes on Hamletian hues of meaning, we are also reminded that Shakespeare’s play Hamlet reflected themes of treachery and moral corruption, to name but two of its subjects. 
In this vein, we see our country imitating Animal Farm. 
You see, 68 percent of Uganda’s working population is employed in agriculture and it accounts for about 24 percent of GDP, and 35 percent of our export earnings.
This means that our farmers play a significant role in our economy. Conversely, our politicians, much like Orwell’s pigs, are more consumptive than productive.

We know that, according to the Electoral Commission, elections in 2026 will saddle us with a hefty bill of Shs1.6 trillion. 
This is the tip of the iceberg if we look at how much the Ugandan taxpayer has to pony up to witness the ridiculous horseplay associated with the costs of funding our government’s shameless subsystem of patronage. 
Evidently, it pays more in Uganda to be a politician than a farmer in the same manner the pigs in Animal Farm did the eating and the hens did the dying.

Naturally, we return to Shakespeare’s Hamlet and ask, in terms of Uganda fulfilling her destiny: to be or not to be? 
As things stand, it’s the latter. 

Mr Matogo is a professional copywriter  
[email protected]