Dr Ian Clarke
I was on my farm when I noticed some ladies hoeing and planting maize on the other side of my boundary. This is a normal activity in farming, but in this case, they had cleared the land right down to the water’s edge and were planting maize in straight lines at right angles to the river.
Since the land they were planting on is a steep slope, topsoil will be washed into the river leaving subsoil that has poor fertility.
My farm manager said he had tried to advise them, but they would not listen since this is the way they had always done it. It seems that basic scientific principles are still not well understood by many small farmers.
Uganda’s agricultural sector is made up mainly of subsistence farmers, which means if they all carry out poor farming practices, the cumulative effect can cause massive erosion, soil loss and poor yields.
As weather conditions become more extreme due to global warming, we will see heavier rains and more prolonged dry spells.
When row crops, such as maize, are planted on steep slopes down to the river’s edge, the heavy rain washes away the rich topsoil and the prolonged dry spells leave the ground dry and cracked.
Basic farming practices do not seem to be taught to our farmers anymore, which represents a fundamental failure of the system of extension workers.
If those farmers planting maize were to plant coffee on the steep slopes and implement water retention measures, they could prevent the erosion and have a continuous cash income from the coffee.
Coffee can be planted on steep slopes since it does not disturb the soil and water retention trenches are then dug at right angles to the slope so that water is retained on the slopes and does not simply run down the hill. Another bad practice of Ugandan farmers is that they do not prune their coffee trees so that as the tree gets older, the coffee production becomes poor, and the coffee is hard to access.
Coffee trees need to be pruned roughly every five years but, in order to prune, the farmer must be prepared to lose at least one year’s crop, and many farmers will not do this.
Hence, we have old poor yielding trees, many infected with pests such as twig borer because of widespread poor agronomic practice. The coffee yields in Uganda could be much higher with the current number of trees if farmers practiced good agronomy. Poor practice is either because farmers are doing traditional farming, or because they are lazy.
Farming according to tradition (how our fathers and grandfathers did it) may work, but sometimes it is wrong. However, our farmers cannot know what to do unless someone teaches them and shows them what works and what does not.
Uganda Coffee Development Authority had a campaign to get farmers to prune their coffee and rewarded them by giving them organic fertiliser. But the practice of pruning is still not widespread because there are no consequences.
They were given a carrot but there is no stick. When I look around my neighbouring farms, I see maize and millet being grown on steep slopes and land being cleared right to the river’s edge so that the river is heavy with soil particles which will be deposited in Lake Albert.
None of this is good farming and most is inappropriate for the terrain, but no agricultural offi cer takes the slightest interest.
Farmers plant maize because it is a quick cash crop, and if they can clear a forest for charcoal and then plant maize, they will do it (while National Forestry Authority takes no action).
While I understand the need for cash, if land on slopes were planted with coffee, leaving the flat land for row crops, erosion will be prevented, and a short and long-term cash income ensured.
Robusta coffee is likely to maintain its high price on the world market, so it is a good cash crop for farmers. We just need to educate them as to where to plant it, how to prevent erosion and do water capture, how to prune it, how to feed it and how to control the pests.
In Vietnam, most of the coffee farmers are also small farmers, but they are more progressive than Ugandan farmers, and as a result, Vietnam produces 28 million 60kg bags of coffee per year.
The result is that their farmers are no longer poor; they have moved to middle income status. There is no reason why the same transformation cannot take place in Uganda — if we train our farmers and take measures to discipline those who persist with poor practice.
