Youth and Agriculture Sensitise Uganda NYAP CIDI Caritas Demark

This documentary is on investigating the challenges youth face in the agriculture sector. It was produced by the National Youth Advocacy Platform and members like Sensitise Uganda with support from Community Integrated Development Initiatives with support from Caritas Demark.

As Sensitise Uganda with would like to acknowledge the support of National Institute of Agricultural Extension Management (MANAGE) India, Feed the Future, USAID and the government of India for the capacity building they are providing to some of our members in trying to make Agriculture attractive to young people.

Uganda as a country we are struggling on how to make agriculture attractive to the young people so that we can solve the problem of unemployment, hunger and malnutrition. This is because over 80% of Uganda’s population is 30 years and below. Around 23% of the entire population is between 18-30 years and over 60% of these are not employed. Unless the country looks at agriculture as a business rather than a dirty sector only resorted to on the last resort, the country is far from achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) especially of ending hunger and poverty.

Agriculture remains the main thrust of Uganda’s economic growth. This is because the sector contributes 25% of our national GDP and employs over 70% of Uganda’s population. This sector also provides great potential and avenues for economic growth and economic inclusion, particularly for women, youth, and persons with disabilities. Statistics show that women make up 55% of the economically active population, and they also contribute more than 75% of the total farm labor and over 90% of farm-level primary processing operations. Almost half (45%) of the heads of smallholder farming households are under the age of 40.

Over the last five years, statistics show that Uganda’s population has grown at a rate of 3.2% per annum while output in agriculture has been growing at an average of 2.6% per annum; compared to the required 6% annual growth by the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP).

Note: What is still shocking is that a sector that employs over 70% of the entire population but contributes only 25% to the national GDP. Also Uganda’s population grows at a rate of 3.2% per annum while agriculture grows of 2.6% per annum. This is alarm as the population grows faster than the sector that feeds it.

To make matters worse, there are inadequate Agricultural Extension services across the country mainly attributed to the low extension to farmer ratio of 1:800 yet the recommended ratio is 1:500. This has undermined the role of extension in Agriculture leading to poor/low yields and hence making Agriculture less productive. Besides, the recruited extension workers have not been well facilitated to enable them perform their roles effectively.
Also youth lack access to agricultural credit. The poor agricultural asset base provides young farmers with limited chances to access credit in rural financial institutions, often tied to availability of collateral (usually land) that young people do not adequately have/own. It is thus not surprising that only 2.8% of the youth headed households in agricultural households report having access to credit compared to 8.3% of the prime age group and 5.1% for the elderly . The chi square test shows that the difference in credit accessibility is statistically significant between the youth and their prime age counterparts.
Credit availability increases the ability to invest and improve access to productive inputs and critical agricultural assets important for improving farm productivity and returns. Credit programs may enable farmers to purchase inputs or acquire physical capital, needed for technology adoption.

Land is also a critical factor of production yet Uganda is a patrilineal society where the rights of passage of land and land ownership is majorly vested in men. This puts women and youths (under 18 years) at a disadvantage of acquiring land as a factor of production. This further affects youth and women with regards to accessing agriculture financing/ loans since most of the collateral accepted by the financing institutions is land.

- Chrispin Mutehimbwa Kakuba.