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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