Thursday, October 29, 2015

Ugandan Farming Satellite

       The people of Uganda find much use in the farming market. According to indexmundi.com, farming accounts for eighty-two percent of employment in Uganda. In an attempt to decrease losses caused by the environment, the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation has started a program to provide weather information to farmers. This project may lead to rises in areas outside of farming.
            This following video describes modern farming in Uganda:

            The introduction of new technologies to farming has led to an increase of schooling for potential farmers, who will need this knowledge to stay profitable. The Market-led, User-owned ICT4Ag Enabled Information Service (MUIIS) plans to supply data related to crop management such as oncoming weather. According to Bruno Matovu, a Ugandan farmer, in an article published by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, “The climate changes have resulted in a really bad harvest in most of Uganda, creating a food shortage and high prices.” These issues will make the information provided by the MUIIS a necessity for farming. This will in turn increase literacy, currently at seventy-eight percent according to cia.gov, in Uganda as farmers, which makes up eighty-two percent of the labor force in Uganda, will need to be literate enough to read the necessary information.
            The project will focus on corn, soybean, and sesame production from the beginning. This may bring in investors interested in the increased profitability of the Ugandan farms due to the price increase from weather issues. Bruno Matovu, as reported in the previous article, began a partnership with a Danish farmer Jens Jensen based around corn and plan to incorporate soya beans. This means there are foreign investors interested in the selected crops. The system makes the prospects more enticing as the farmers can deal with the moisture issues indicated by Matovu.
            The effect on capacity building also holds a special place in the MUIIS project. As stated by Matovu, climate changes and moisture issues have caused issues for harvesting and food shortages. The data supplied by this satellite will allow people to develop the processes necessary to deal with the changing weather. They’ve already begun to by installing irrigation systems.
            The only issue with the MUIIS project comes from the selected crops. While corn has shown itself as a profitable item and soy beans can help rejuvenate soil used by corn, both have been steadily decreasing in monthly price according to indexmundi.com. These trends indicate that the selected crops will not attract the increase in investments desired by the Ugandans, as they lack the profitability.
            The MUIIS project also miscarries how to go about one of its larger objectives, increasing the national GDP. According to indexmundi.com, both services and industry contribute more to the GDP then agriculture. Perhaps focusing on enhancing the efficiency of those sectors over agriculture would create a larger yield for the country economically, and still advance such things as literacy and building capacity.
            The project does possess the ability to cause great changes in Uganda, but perhaps they need to look at the data before they begin.
Bibliography:
"Uganda: New Satellite Data Technology to Provide Farmers With Information." AllAfrica.com. N.p., 28 Oct. 2015. Web. 29 Oct. 2015.

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