Ugandans have been implored to use their God-given knowledge to improve own lives as well as those of their neighbors by embracing agricultural methods.
The advice was sounded by the head of state, President Yoweri Museveni while addressing Christians at a farm in Luweero. The president was on Sunday afternoon touring Farming Consultant Management Company (FACOM) demonstration farm in Bamunanika, Luweero district.
The 30-acre project is a demonstration farm that uses creative science, research and recreation to teach farmers better and modernized agriculture headed by Bishop Joshua Lwere, who is the Overseer of the National Assembly of the Fellowship of Born-Again Pentecostal Churches in Uganda.
In his speech, Mr. Museveni stressed the need for ‘Balokole' to fight poverty by using the three dimensional approach employed by Jesus namely to preach the gospel, heal the sick and feed the hungry.
“A Bishop cannot only talk of life after. You can also heal without being a doctor through growing food and encouraging good nutrition,” he said.He
hailed Christian leaders for having carried out extensive research on finding the right seeds that yield good harvest.
“We spend over Shs.600 billion in wealth creation but after what Iga Patrick has shown me, I have seen that much of the money is wasted. These government people only enrich the tender people yet they give people wrong seedlings like cassava. Now that you have discovered weaknesses which must have been discovered by the government experts, like NAADS, these NAADs people have been tested and found wanting,” he observed.
Mr. Museveni warned farmers against growing food only for their stomachs but urged them to carry out commercialised agriculture so as to escape the poverty trap.
“The first problem I noticed in 1965 was that there was no differentiation between subsistence farming and household income. They would only dig for their stomachs. People must transform from subsistence to commercial farming. The best place to teach this is from the parish,” he noted.
He re-echoed the need for farmers to practice the four-acre model production especially for those with small pieces of land. He reiterated that Africans must avoid land fragmentation and use shares to make profits from the land.
