Busheeka, Friday, February 17, 2023.

(Flashback: Kampala, July 2020)

It is an enigmatic scare. A mixed bag of hope and despondence in a single pack, in a spate of a fortnight. First, it was the announcement by the World Food Programme declaring Uganda a food hub for region. By coincidence or design, the regional headquarters for this UN agency are in Uganda. Good news, we flapped wings. Hardly a week after, it rains on us: maize prices have sunk to such a low that one needs to sell five kilos of maize per day, to buy a day’s telecom link subscription, OTT in our latest list of jargons. And to garnish it all, President Museveni, while presiding over International Youth Day celebrations, first throws a bombshell against UPE (the government programme to promote universal education for all) and then argues for capital and skills as the missing link for the Ugandan youth to employment. Stirring this mix in one huge pot yields the bitter brew of what we planted (knowingly or otherwise), close to three decades ago. Demographers do tell us that three decades is a generation: thus, children born in the days of PAPSCA (anybody remember this?), are now parents.

Fast forward. February 2023

A rural enclave of prosperity. Secret? They rejected flogging the dead Ugandan horse: the failed liberalisation policy. They instead elected to bury this dead horse.  Yes, they decided. We will not flog this dead horse. Let us bury it. And the time is now. At the risk of intellectual property suits if not reproaches, I will share with our  top level policy makers, my Grandpa’s  secret in his native enclave, which if extrapolated to Uganda, will see the country  import manpower from the region, the Ugandan labourfoce having been swallowed by the monster enterprises born weekly across all sectors.  Basking in the proverbial post-harvest burning of granaries, the Batahigwa (natives and citizens of Rwabuziro, my Grandpa’s enclave) were awakened from their slumber by a Trojan-horse visitor, who came with glad tidings, only to turn-around like an axe in its handle, and was poised to take over the economy of the enclave.

Thank God Grandpa was alert. Mr Trojan Horse has been rendered spineless and stingless, and in Rwabuziro, the economy is so flourishing that each family earns a minimum net income of Ugx 2,000,000 per month.  This is either from farm business, or employment in the enclave industries and farms, where each sector employs an average of 100,000 people across its value chains and webs, in this tiny enclave of 750,000 inhabitants:

• Muvule Fisheries Ltd is engaged in cage-fish farming on Lake Muti, as the nucleus farm linking 8,000 smallholder farmers. The combined monthly output is 20,000,000 plate-size units fish, supplied to schools and universities in the enclave; and 300,000,000 silver fish sardines tinned for relief feeding under a 20-year supply contract from a leading UN agency that caters for refugees.
• Karama Industries Ltd produces pharma-grade maize, processed into corn-starch for the pharmaceutical sector in EAC and COMESA, hitherto dependent on imports from China. Its subsidiary, Musasa Foods, produces cornflakes, fortified food and baby-formula. This last one is from fine maize flour, millet flour and egg-white.
• Busheeka Textiles buys cotton lint from Birezi Cooperative Union, and manufactures fabrics of pure cotton, and those with mixed fibres including sisal from banana stems. Rwabuziro   is the only place where people despise mivumba, and they would rather wear their home-made ‘poor quality’ garments and linen than importing cheap ‘designer’ mivumba of used underwear, floor rugs, handkerchiefs, towels, and anything in-between. Besides garments, they make indoors and outdoors carpets from banana stem threads and organic sisal.
• The cash cow of the enclave is at present Grena Ltd, which produces micronutrients extracted from organic fruits and vegetables. Banking on the expertise of their graduates in pharmacy and food science, the leadership established a joint venture with an Italian foods conglomerate, who provided the essential technology. Grena today employs173, 000 people across its value chains and webs, and is ranked the enclave’s number one tax payer. Besides the domestic market, Grena exports her products globally under Fairtrade terms, with Rainforest certification.
• Birezi Ridges runs a livestock farm that combines modern practices with adherence to traditional cultural values. This farm, thanks to its location, thrives and infects the community through the traditional cultural practice of Okuhereka. This is a practice where someone rears animals on behalf of the owner, and the two share the offsprings alternately.

This has solved the unintended challenge occasioned by modern education, where young men hitherto tending animals have to be in school. Here is how Birezi Ridges does it: the ranch owns a small herd of 120 heads as the nucleus stock. This serves to hold other animals from the neighbours, who bring in a maximum of two animals per family, in the ranch. This ensures space and capacity enough for 4 neighbouring villages to have their herds in one place. For its fees, the ranch takes 50% of the milk from each family’s milking cow, while in the long run, it retains every third calf born to the cow owner.

The ranch has since 2018 introduced small ruminants(sheep) that graze alongside the cattle, and provide ready and easily ‘diposable’ meat to the village.  Free range chicken(indigenous) are also another recent addition to the animal stock. They feed alongside the ruminants and the egrets, as the larger animals stir the insects in the grass.  A mega factory producing tinned meat and powder eggs is nearing completion. The crop section of the farm specialises in horticulture, millet and cassava, which also have outgrowers.

These have formed a strong base for the production of export-quality flour, besides child nutrition especially the baby formula made from egg-white and fine millet flour. For every 100kg milled, a farmer receives back 30kg for domestic consumption, earning revenue from 70kg. This is exported under Fairtrade terms, thus earning a premium price, which compensates for the income otherwise ‘forfeited’ in the 30kg retained for home consumption. This is possible because the company sells at 35% above the market price, in speciality outlets across Europe.

One strange fact about this enclave is that 70% of the farm labour is made up of student apprentices, after their high school.  Each apprentice spends two years at the ranch, working alternately in all enterprises of the farm. They earn a stipend that finances their tertiary education…

This is the secret behind the prosperity of this enclave. It now imports labour from all over East Africa, its own having been overwhelmed by the investments in its key pillars.

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COVINOMICS  2036

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