The newly appointed senior presidential advisor on agribusiness, Dr. Hillary Musoke Kisanja has said his plan is to ensure at least 50 million jobs are created in the agriculture sector.
Laying out his plan for the new position, Musoke said whereas many youths are currently unemployed, the magic bullet to this problem is agribusiness.
“There is need to change the mindset of Ugandans, especially youths about agriculture. The people’s attitude and perception of agriculture in this country must change. Agro-industrialization, agro-processing and value addition is the way to go,” he said.
“It is high time we made agriculture cool, sexy, and romantic, so that young people can see it as a viable career option. Ugandans should begin seeing agriculture as a business, not just a subsistence activity.”
President Museveni has on several occasions called for a ban on exportation of the country’s raw materials.
Speaking during the press briefing, the newly appointed senior presidential advisor on agribusiness said the country loses a lot of money in form of products exported in raw form, yet the same could have value added onto it to fetch more money.
“Take leather, for example. It is taken to Italy, processed, and we buy back the shoes at shs2 million yet skins and hides are bought for only shs300. Our cocoa is shipped to Europe, turned into chocolate, and we buy it back at shs10,000, while a kilo of cocoa, which can produce over a hundred bars, costs only shs8,000.”
He said Ugandans, especially youths ought to get involved in value addition as a way of ensuring the product fetch more cash but also create employment.
Dr.Kisanja gave an example of 50 cash crops that he said can be tapped into and the country can create over 50 million jobs.
“If all Ugandans, especially youths, take interest in at least one of these crops, either through farming, extracting juice out of them or any other form of value addition, we can create more than 50 million jobs. Imagine you rear poultry and you add value on eggs , make chocolate out of cocoa, make juice out of passion fruits, water melons, apples and onions, this will create a number of jobs.”
“There are those who don’t want to go to gardens and that is okay. Let others be in the garden as others are in the intermediary adding value on what is produced from the garden. By this, we can create more jobs than the population we have since we will have jobs all over the entire agriculture value chain. Uganda can easily employ other people from the neighbouring countries.”
He noted that this can only be achieved through strong collaboration between government and the private sector.
