President Yoweri Museveni has asked Ugandans to stop making excuses and fight poverty that has eaten up most parts of the country.
“All Ugandans, stop making excuses. It is possible to get out of poverty. You all can get out of poverty,” Museveni said.
While making the remarks in Kiruhura, he said that Ugandans can get out of poverty through four sectors of commercial farming, manufacturing, services and ICT as magic bullets.
Referring to the four-acre model of agriculture, Museveni suggested that the four-acre model then comes in handy where one acre is used for coffee, then fruits on the second one, pasture for zero grazing cattle on the other, and then food crops in the remaining acre.
“In the backyard, those interested could put poultry, a piggery, and those near water would do fish farming. These are nine activities that have got a huge global market that we have long ago confirmed and have a good return per acre, per annum. With these, we cannot go wrong,” Museveni said.
He noted that new crops including macadamia and cashew-nuts are coming up, noting that the government will analyze them to see if they can ably fit in the four-acre model.
“The four acres model is part of what we call intensive agriculture. It is designed to benefit the country but particularly to benefit the smallholder. There are other products that the country needs, but do not fit in intensive agriculture. They come in what is called extensive agriculture ─ getting a small income per acre but doing it on a big scale.
This is where maize, sugarcane, cotton, ranching, tobacco, etc., come in. While the Parish Development Model (PDM) deals with the 4 acres model, Uganda Development Bank (UDB), will handle the extensive agriculture,” he said.
