By Hon Dr Godfrey Pereza Ahabwe (Former Minister)
OPERATION WEALTH CREATION EXTENDED MANDATE OVERDUE
By Hon Dr Godfrey Pereza Ahabwe, former Minister.
In the New Vision of Monday, 3rd August, 2026 was a story about OWC inauguration of their extended mandate from Distribution of Agricultural Inputs to Promote Commercial Agriculture to include Production, Value Addition, Agro-industrialization, and Monitoring Implementation of Government Programmes.
Whereas the 13 years of distribution of Agricultural inputs are commendable and the results are glaringly visible, for instance, coffee expanded from approximately 3-3.6 million 60-kg bags in 2014 that fetched US$300 million-430 million to 8.7 million 60-kg bags that fetched 8 trillion Uganda shillings, it would have been mission unfinished if there was no follow up on this magical achievement.
Besides, government programmes like the Parish Development Model do not seem to have a clear monitoring mechanism apart from the usual government red-tape through Parliament, RDCs, DISOs, and Local Councillors many of whom have been complicit in corrupt practices!
The current ongoing Uganda National Household Survey by UBOS has questions on government programmes namely: the questionnaire dedicates an entire subsection on the Parish Development Model intervention by the government.
Whereas the answers to the questions will facilitate the impact assessment of the programme, they won’t capture any form of monitoring and guidance on its implementation. OWC comes in timely to play this role and any gaps filled early enough to direct the programme to the right path.
Finally, for the extended mandate of OWC to be more effective, a multidisciplinary team that blends Retired Army Officers and Professional Technical Personnel of diverse disciplines is of an unavoidable necessity.
The latter category would involve experts in Agricultural Sciences, Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness as follows:
- Agricultural production:
Professionals directly concerned with increasing farm productivity include Agronomists – crop production, soil management, farming systems and productivity,
Agricultural scientists – research, technology adoption and production innovations,
Agricultural extension officers – farmer training, technology transfer and mobilization,
Animal scientists/veterinarians – livestock production, health and productivity, Agricultural engineers – mechanization, irrigation, post-harvest technologies and farm infrastructure, Soil scientists – soil fertility, conservation and land management, Agricultural economists – farm profitability, input use, markets and production incentives.
- Agro-industrialization
This requires professionals who can connect primary agricultural production to industry and markets. These include
Agricultural economists, Agribusiness specialists,
Agricultural engineers,
Food scientists and technologists
Industrial engineers,
Production/manufacturing specialists,
Supply-chain and logistics specialists, and
Business/enterprise development specialists.
Their role includes developing processing enterprises, improving productivity, linking farmers to processors, analyzing value chains and making agricultural enterprises commercially viable.
- Value addition and agro-processing requires
Food scientists, Food technologists, Agricultural engineers, Industrial engineers, Agribusiness specialists, and Agricultural economists.
For example, turning coffee from green beans into roasted coffee as well as packaged branded coffee for export requires considerably different expertise from simply increasing coffee production.
- Markets, trade and commercialization
A government programme seeking agro-industrialization also needs people who understand markets such as
Agricultural economists,
Agribusiness specialists,
Marketing specialists,
Value-chain specialists,
Financial analysts, and
Supply-chain specialists.
They would examine questions such as:
Is increased production translating into higher farmer incomes?
Where are the bottlenecks in the value chain?
Which products have the greatest processing potential?
Is domestic processing more profitable than exporting raw commodities?
- Monitoring, evaluation and impact assessment
Here the strongest disciplines are:
Economists/econometricians,
Statisticians,
Monitoring & Evaluation specialists, and Data analysts.
For rigorous government programme evaluation, economists/econometricians and statisticians are particularly useful because they can move beyond simply reporting outputs.
For example:
Monitoring would capture the number of farmers who received improved seed.
Evaluation would go a step further whether receiving the improved seed actually increases yields and household agricultural income compared with what would have happened without the intervention.
- Policy, planning and programme management
Government agricultural programmes also need Public policy and Public administration specialists as well as project managers whose profession is to translate technical agricultural interventions into government policy, budgets, targets, implementation frameworks and performance indicators.
An Agricultural Economist, can actually sit at the intersection of all the areas except Agronomy thus:
Agricultural production:
Production functions, productivity, input efficiency.
Agro-industrialization:
Industrial organisation, investment and productivity
Value addition:
Value-chain economics, cost-benefit analysis.
Markets:
Price analysis, demand, supply and trade.
Farmer incomes:
Income and welfare analysis.
Monitoring & Evaluation:
Impact evaluation and econometrics.
Programme efficiency:
Cost-effectiveness/cost-benefit analysis.
Data:
Econometrics, statistics and modelling.
Policy decisions:
Economic appraisal and forecasting.
This is why Agricultural Economics is arguably one of the most naturally aligned professions for such a programme. However, an economist would not replace an agronomist. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
