Foro Global sobre Seguridad Alimentaria y Nutrición (Foro FSN)

Este miembro contribuyó a:

    • Dear Moderator,

      Agriculture would be the best avenue for the poorest of the poor to eradicate poverty in their households. Unfortunately, if we consider some factors of production that is; land, labour, capital and technology; they only have manual labour available. Most of them are landless, capital is not easily accessible because they lack security to offer to fellow farmers or financial institutions. Technology like improved seed, equipment, agro-inputs and even extension workers require finances.

      If we are to support the poorest of the poor, they could be trained in activities that provide labour in form of casual or full-time employment in the agricultural sector; hence get income for food security and improving their livelihood. For example;

      1. They can be trained to be sprayers in vegetable production, manage oxen in ploughing and provide labour during shelling of maize or groundnuts by managing shellers on behalf of the owners.
      2. They can be trained to be artisans that repair ox-ploughs, cutting blades in shellers, repair maize and rice mills, repair knapsack sprayers and any other equipment/machine used in agricultural production.
      3. They could be trained to construct the maize cribs, granaries, water reservoirs and other farm structures. The suggestions are tedious work which involve the men (youth and adults), thus leaving out the women unfortunately. If someone is involved in spraying, for each knapsack he gets Ugx3,000 (approx. $0.8) so if he sprays 1 acre that requires 12 knapsacks, he gets Ugx 36,000 (approx $10) in a day. If he gets casual work in 10 days during a month, he would be getting Ugx 360,000 ($100) in a month.

      Note: Those jobs are done by the private sector, however, if we deliberately train them, then they could be a resource that can be used in the communities.

      For the women, activities can include sorting and grading of fruits and vegetables, flowers and grains. The usual farm activities like weeding, harvesting and drying are possibilities. There might not be training to become well-known for the job as is the case for the men though.

      ​Harriet

      Harriet Nsubuga Mpanga

      Agribusiness Development Specialist

    • The export restrictions within the concerned African country can enhance food security in the short run because Governments are ensuring food availability and accessibility for their people. This however has to be temporary because the export restrictions affect neighbouring countries that are food importers in that food becomes expensive due to limited availability. It means the people with low incomes might not access such foods due to the high cost leading to malnutrition. For countries within the same Regional Economic Community for example East African Community (EAC), the export restrictions should be avoided so as to build trade between member countries.

      WTO disciplines on export restrictions should be stricter, but this depends on whether they can be enforced. There some instances where the WTO discipline may not be considered; for example developing and Least Developed Countries were allowed flexibilities to institute export restrictions if there is likelihood of food insecurity within their countries.