We must ensure Uganda is producing quality food
Vegetables on sale at Nakasero market in Kampala. The 2022 UNACOH report noted that tomatoes were the horticultural crop most doused in pesticides. PHOTO/FRANK BAGUMA
What you need to know:
- The issue: Food quality.
- Our view: We call upon all stakeholders to play their part so that food coming from Uganda is of the highest quality, first to protect the health of Ugandans, but also open more markets for Ugandan food.
Recently, health experts came out to warn Ugandans that vegetables in the market are contaminated with hazardous pesticides, especially tomatoes.
The Uganda National Association of Community and Occupational Health (UNACOH) indicated that horticultural farmers in Uganda use up to 45 highly hazardous pesticides to boost crop production.
Empirical evidence shows that these pesticides pose long-term health effects such as predisposing people to cancer, especially when used carelessly.
This comes at a time that Ugandan grain exporters are up in arms over the impounding of more than 70 trucks of maize flour that was being exported to neighbouring South Sudan. South Sudan National Bureau of Standards (SSNBS) says the flour is contaminated with aflatoxins, and therefore, wants to destroy the flour worth billions of Shillings.
In April 2021, the Minister for Disaster Preparedness, Mr Hilary Onek, warned the United Nations that it must buy food from Ugandan farmers to feed refugees, or relocate them elsewhere.
Mr Onek was responding to remarks by Ms Rosa Malango, then United Nations resident coordinator, that WFP was unable to purchase food locally because of “poor quality” of Uganda’s foodstuffs. The quality of food from Uganda – considered to be the regional food basket – has been repeatedly questioned.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), unsafe food containing harmful bacteria, viruses, parasites or chemical substances causes more than 200 diseases, ranging from diarrhoea to cancers.
Agriculture is the backbone of Uganda’s economy and, therefore, anything that threatens it is bound to hurt millions of farmers who depend on the sector for both food and a living.
Therefore, we call upon all stakeholders to play their part so that food coming from Uganda is of the highest quality, first to protect the health of Ugandans, but also open more markets for Ugandan food.
Like the experts have recommended, we call upon authorities to ensure that every district has a pesticide waste management and disposal plans. Government should also regulate the types of pesticides in the market.
Farmers should also be educated about post-harvest handling so that the food is not infected later on in the production chain.
Otherwise, having farmers churning out contaminated food has grave dangers to both public health and the Ugandan economy.
