By Vision Reporter
President Yoweri Museveni has expressed gratitude for the opportunity Uganda has got to host the forthcoming Extraordinary Agricultural Summit of Heads of State and Government due in Kampala in January next year.
Yesterday (Wednesday, August 21), Museveni met with the African Union (AU) Commissioner for Agriculture, Rural Development, Blue Economy, and Sustainable Environment, Ambassador Josefa Sacko, who paid the President a courtesy call at State House, Entebbe.
Museveni and his guest discussed preparations for hosting the summit.
“That is music to my ears, and I am very happy to host this summit. The potential for agriculture is huge in Africa. Uganda is really good to peg our agricultural perceptions around what we have saved, because we preserved the indigenous agriculture: cows, goats, bananas, cassava, fish, among others.
“Our job was to modernise and commercialise our agriculture,” Museveni said.
Sacko was accompanied by the Minister of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries, Frank Tumwebaze.
“When you hear that people in Africa do not have food, it is because of colonialism and the dislocation of people from their heritage. They (Africans) start despising themselves and worshiping everything foreign. For agriculture, you are definitely at home. Uganda is the place — we have the crops of the forest, tropical savanna, and temperate crops,” the President said.
The previous AU agricultural summit was held in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, in 2014.
The summit shaped the action plan around the Malabo Declaration, which emphasised the prioritisation of accelerated agricultural growth and transformation for shared prosperity and improved livelihoods.
The meeting was also attended by agriculture ministry’s permanent secretary, Maj. Gen. David Kasura Kyomukama.
Organic foods: Uganda leads
Recently, Uganda was ranked second globally in organic food production.
The country comes after India and is closely followed by China, according to the National Organic Agriculture Movement of Uganda (NOGAMU) report, a study carried out jointly with Makerere University.
The study puts Uganda in the first position in Africa. The report suggests that Uganda’s agricultural system is by default largely organic due to the minimal use of external inputs like fertilisers and pesticides, as compared to other parts of the world.
LEAD PHOTO CAPTION: President Museveni (third-left), Sacko (second-left), Tumwebaze (fourth-left) and other officials after the meeting at State House, Entebbe on Wednesday. PPU photo
