Prof Otim-Nape emphasizes to journalists their key involvement in transforming Uganda’s agricultural sector through continuous reporting on the issues about the sector

The Africa Innovations Institute (AfrII) Chairman, Prof. George William Otim-Nape has called on Journalists in Uganda to sensitize and mobilize farmers and other practitioners to adopt modern agricultural practices and urge these to view farming as a business not a hobby. He said that there is need to report more on agriculture so that people can have food on the table. “Media has a key role to change people’s mindset to move away from subsistence agriculture and focus on commercial agriculture.” Says Nape.

He made the remarks this morning when giving an overview of Uganda’s Agricultural Policy and Management: An expert talk at the public policy reporting workshop for journalists at the African Centre for Media Excellence hub in Bunga, kampala.

He also asked them to mobilize youths for attitude and mind-set change in favor of engaging in gainful employment in the agricultural value chains, as well as mobilize the masses on the need for responsible use of the natural resource base so as to achieve sustainable utilization for the current and future generations in endlessness.

Prof. Otim-Nape listens to a journalist during the media workshop at the ACME in Bunga

Professor Nape emphasized that the media needs to understand and appreciate the critical role of the agricultural sector in societal and economic transformation and mobilize the citizens for actions to transform the sector. “As media, you should have a holistic examination of the sector’s challenges, the causes of the failing performance of the sector and advocate for putting in place effective policy, strategies, structural measures and programmes required to get the sector on accelerated growth and transformation”

The media are supposed to play a critical role in the policy process. Journalists can flag problems that require attention, weigh policy options that could be considered broader decision-making to include a diversity of voices from citizens and interest groups, inform the public about what is at stake, as well as evaluate the implementation policy.

The agricultural sector is key to the economy. It employs about 80% of the general population and contributes over 68% of the country’s export earnings. Still, the sector has registered poor performance in the last three decades and has not been able to adequately meet the food and nutritional needs of the people of Uganda.

This calls for a lot more efforts to revolutionize the agricultural sector as the nation strives to achieve Vision 2040.