Fighting Disease:  Uganda

Increasing Food Production

The Carter Center also worked in Uganda to promote food security in the nation. Led by Nobel Prize Peace winner Dr. Norman Borlaug until his death in 2009, the agricultural development work was a joint venture between the Center's Global 2000 Program and the Sasakawa Africa Association. The prescription was simple: Provide farmers with credit for fertilizers and enhanced seeds to grow test plots. These test plots often yielded 200 to 400 percent more crops, and farmers went on to teach other farmers, creating a ripple effect to stimulate self-sufficiency. In Uganda, the main objectives of the program were to improve cultivation of maize and the elimination of varieties of cassava that are susceptible to the cassava mosaic virus. A staple food, cassava crops have been devastated by this virus that has blighted extensive farmland in Uganda.

The program was so successful it enabled Uganda to help other less fortunate nations. For example, in 2002, three consecutive seasons of large maize crops had kept the price of corn affordable. This abundance was beneficial to many Ugandans who began to enjoy increased food availability for home consumption. However, maize farmers were harmed by deflation in the value of their produce. Thus, the government took action by forming a grain traders' association. The association successfully exported more than 40,000 tons of excess maize to famine-stricken countries in southern Africa, such as Zambia and Malawi.

Also in 2002, 15,389 farmers participated in a demonstration to promote improved cereal farming systems hosted by The Carter Center and the Uganda Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industries, and Fisheries. The program broadened the options of crops available for cultivation for farmers by introducing rice and pigeon peas.

Yet, unless resource-poor farmers were able to bargain for the best price for their crops, the agricultural developments introduced in Uganda would not be self-sufficient. Because resource-poor farmers found it difficult to organize themselves into bodies that can make effective decisions and obtain services, "one-stop centers" were established in 2003 in Uganda to provide rural populations with access to agricultural services through farmer-owned and farmer-managed associations. Uganda's agriculture program used these centers as an instrument to increase community ownership of program activities and establish a farmer-driven process for accessing technologies and services. The one-stop centers also bridged the gap between the rural poor and urban areas by bringing services closer to everyone in the community. Community-based initiatives aimed to strengthen institutions' provisions for services such as: input delivery, production, agroprocessing, and marketing. Additional services included: rural finance, literacy, health care, and various social safety net interventions.

The Carter Center ended its agricultural activities in Uganda in 2011.

Read more about the Carter Center's agriculture work — with the Sasakawa-Africa Association — in
Uganda >