Sheema District Woman Member Of Parliament, Jacklet Atuhaire Rwabukukuru has urged Ugandans especially those in rural areas to put more effort into agriculture during this Coronavirus lockdown.
The message was delivered in an open letter to all Ugandans more, to her good people of Sheema.
It’s from this letter that the Lawmaker warned that the country could face a food crisis if at all it remains silent on the message to its citizens to take up family based agricultural practices in order to mitigate the disease’ impact on the country’s food system.
“The lockdown in itself will not only affect the access to various nutritious sources of food but worse is when the supply is cut down because the people have failed to adopt to planting quick maturing crops in large numbers in order to close on the lack thereof. We, as Sheema District, need to be the food basket at a time when countries are risking to be affected by untold levels of food insecurity,” Hon. Jacklet advised.
Below Is Hon. Jacklet’s Full Statement
LET US ADOPT A FAMILY ORIENTED DISTRICT FOOD SECURITY STAND AMIDST THE CORONA LOCKDOWN IN SHEEMA
This week I have taken a tremendous amount of my time to engage more in Agriculture than before. Well as I have been in farming for the past few years, I was planting what I would call a subsistence amount that would probably be finished within a week if we were to constantly feed on those harvests. But true to the Covid-19 situation, I have opted to farm like any other serious mother in order to have an extra grain in my house granary should this pandemic turn into the food crisis that many have envisaged for Africa.
Without doubt, I fully commend the resilience of the families in Sheema District, because this disease, has put us in a war-like situation that almost 70% of us today in the District had never experienced. The whole country is fighting against an invisible enemy that has moved us from what we had called the normal – prayer activities, education, employment to mention but a few are all shut down.
Back in my constituency, Sheema District, we are glad that the disease has not yet reached our homes but that doesn’t take away the fact that our lives and livelihoods are still at risk from this dangerous pandemic. Regionally, this disease is still spreading daily, and despite that we know that it will eventually retreat, we don’t know how soon this is going to happen. But one thing that the whole world is now sure of is that this pandemic unlike the past ones, has a significant effect on the food supply and demand cycle.
The country could face a food crisis if at all it remains silent on the message to its citizens to take up family based agricultural practices in order to mitigate the disease’ impact on the country’s food system. The lockdown in itself will not only affect the access to various nutritious sources of food but worse is when the supply is cut down because the people have failed to adopt to planting quick maturing crops in large numbers in order to close on the lack thereof. We, as Sheema District, need to be the food basket at a time when countries are risking to be affected by untold levels of food insecurity.
It remains to be told, in Sheema, we have the capacity to adopt intensive small scale farming that could turn this health crisis we faced with into a huge surplus when the harvest time comes. We have countless ways to engage our families to adopt agriculture especially the foods of high value commodities – fruits and vegetables that may be less on the market due to their perishability at this moment when there is a draw down in the demand for fresh produce.
Let’s not lose all hope in this time of despair as result of this Coronavirus Outbreak, let’s join our hands and become big producers as families while using any space available. Together we can win against Corona.
Stay home, Save lives, Save hunger in Sheema by planting more foods.
Jacklet Atuhaire Rwabukurukuru
SHEEMA DISTRICT WOMAN MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT
