Uganda Can Feed Over 200 Million People And More Say Museveni

Courtesy photo 

President Museveni has declared Uganda’s private sector is gradually raising large commercial agriculture to provide the region and the world at large, even as hunger goes on to stalk the northeastern part of the country where it claimed the lives of at least 2,207 citizens in the restive Karamoja sub-region.

The 2022 Human Rights and Freedoms report released by Uganda Human Rights Commission (UHRC) in May 2023 is littered with hundreds of deaths reported in the mineral-rich Karamoja sub-region due to famine and hunger-associated sickness.

Nevertheless, Mr Museveni who has lived at the helm of Uganda’s oversight since 1986 believes that 45 million people evaluated to be his country’s total population can feed a population equal to the size of Pakistan, Nigeria, or Brazil, among others.

President 

"We are only 45 million people but with the ability to feed 200 million people and more given the fertile lands and the increasing technical know-how of our young people,” the president said while talking with a group of officials from the Presidential Advisory Committee on Exports and Industrial Development (PACEID) that enables value addition, and marketing Uganda's products abroad led by his son-in-law, Mr. Odrek Rwabwogo, at Nakasero State Lodge.

According to the president, Uganda is also in the large arising market of East Africa and the incredible African common market which is an area of 1.4 billion people now.

During the Tuesday seminar attended by the Serbian Minister of Trade, Tomislav Momirovic, Mr. Museveni called upon the government and people of the Republic of Serbia to fund Uganda's flourishing agricultural sector and ensured them of all motivations on land, taxes, and access to the larger market of Africa, adding that Uganda delivers almost any agricultural commodity anyone can name on earth; ranging from fruits and vegetables, meats, dairy products, nuts, and grains as well as the essential vegetable oils.

“I am delighted to introduce to you the organic, fresh-in nutrients agricultural products from Uganda. Our products are grown on smallholder farms with very much care about the preparation because that is what we eat and it is also part of the heritages of families,” Mr President stated.

However, during a recent visit by our reporters to the restive mineral-rich Karamoja sub-region where hundreds of citizens succumbed to hunger and starvation-related illnesses last year, women and children were found gathering leaves and nuts for food.

Courtesy photo

According to the president, Uganda is curious about partnering with Serbian companies to invest more in the agriculture sector in the East African nation.

Museveni lauded his Serbian counterpart, Aleksandar Vučić for sending his Minister of Trade to Uganda to deliver a special message, inviting him to the Patriotic Republic of Serbia.

“I will be coming with a delegation of 60 companies and businesspeople who will bring you food and other products,”  Museveni said adding he was happy to report that Serbia, with an estimated population of about 6.8 million people, had already vented interest in Uganda’s pineapples, coffee, grains, flowers, dairy and banana products.

Uganda has had bilateral connections with the former Yugoslavia Republic since 1963, according to government officials.

The president requested the national carrier, Uganda Airlines to create a partnership with Air Serbia so that the two establishments can fast-track business, tourism, and personnel exchanges.