Pockets of Excellence Hold the Password to Agricultural Transformation

 ‘….and aren’t we moving in circles, regurgitating jargons and catch-words, with no tangible effect’…?

Mzee Mashurubu was jerked to attention, as we followed the presentations and reactions during the last dialogue on agriculture, organised by the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries (MAAIF) and Private Sector Foundation Uganda, in the second week of February 2022. With its central theme being the ‘lead farm’ also called the nucleus farm, the attendant jargons of ‘value chain’, ‘value addition’ ‘zoning’, ‘area enterprise cooperative’…dominated the conversations. And this is what jolted Mzee to attention, having been part-distracted by a clarification dialogue with his Management Accountant at one of his companies.

‘Even with the jargons, we simply use them freely with no much thought, yet the practice is radically different from what they mean…’, he startled us. In his analysis, we have for long practiced supply trails and mistaken them for value chains. And this is the Achilles heel of our agricultural sector, but within it lies the secret magic wand. A supply trail is where a matooke trader rides three kilometres delivering six bunches ‘to whom it may concern’ in the village market. On this same day, the truck that bought matooke from the same market four days ago, is on this very day delivering chicken manure in another district, three hundred kilometres away. What then becomes of this bicycle trader with his six bunches? The only logical thing is selling them at throw-away prices or risk returning them home to ripen and rot. Losses! That is where we get it wrong. Conversely, in a true value chain, the bicycle matooke trader will deliver to an aggregator in the village market on agreed terms: quality, quantity, price, frequency. The aggregator will have contract transporter terms with the truck owner, thus the truck will be a dedicated permanent reliable link in the value chain. With this, the village aggregator will deliver to one outlet of Green Supermarket in the city on agreed terms: quality, quantity, price, frequency. This same Green Supermarket will have agreed terms with its key clients, both catering and household. One key tenet of a value chain is that each player is fully aware of their role and its impact on the entire process and income of the respective actors: a contract transporter investing in a mechanically faulty truck will mean disruption and losses to Green Supermarket in the city or the aggregator in the village. Therefore, mutual interest and mutual support are very core elements in a value chain, thus its PSPP cardinal pillars: the PSPP genome is Planned-Structured-Predictable-Profitable. And this is what we have failed to establish, formalise and enforce.

The way forward, therefore, argues Mzee, is identifying and focusing on pilot Pockets of Excellence, both at regional and enterprise-level, following the zoning plan. With this, all will fall in line, including value addition, which does not necessarily mean processing. We can add value by having a seamless PSPP-value chain. Most of our natural organic foods can fetch premium top dollar if exported fresh with minimal alteration of taste and nutritional value. Our bananas (cooking and dessert) are loved world-over in their most natural state and taste. And talking of bananas, a neighbouring EAC Partner State can only fulfil 30% of her quota of green banana export to an Asian country. What would it take for Uganda to have an export re-export arrangement for our organic bananas to the neighbour? Isn’t this what EAC integration is all about?  Which MDAs here will take the lead on this?

Ben Kahunga Matsiko