Food crisis benefits Uganda
2008-06-10 17:48
London - Uganda is benefiting from the current hike in world food prices because it is a net producer of goods like bananas, its President Yoweri Museveni said on Tuesday.
"We are very happy with the food crisis. Why? Because we produce a lot of food, and our problem has been the market," Museveni said after a meeting of Commonwealth leaders in London to discuss institutional reform.
"We produce 10 million metric tonnes of bananas, but 40% of it rots because we have nowhere to sell it," he told a news conference.
"We have been producing so much milk and pouring it (away) until recently when we had a processor from India and now we are selling it."
With the current demand for food now higher, that meant Uganda could sell more of its bananas overseas, he said, adding also: "We are now feeding the world with our milk."
Mainstay of Uganda's economy
Agriculture is the mainstay of Uganda's economy, employing more than 80% of the country's workforce. Coffee accounts for the majority of export revenue.
The veteran Ugandan leader said he did not believe the food crisis would be properly resolved until there was "a more rational interaction" by removing trade barriers.
Uganda's government has been clear nevertheless that the country is suffering from the recent crisis over food prices.
Last month Ugandan State Minister for Relief and Disaster Preparedness Musa Ecweru said the rising prices were threatening emergency food relief efforts in Uganda's drought-stricken north.
"The population has no purchasing power, they rely entirely on relief. We are conducting an operation with the WFP (World Food Programme) to feed the one million people there, but rising food prices is a problem," Ecweru said.
Urgent action needed
The UN last week vowed to take "urgent" action over the global food crisis after soaring prices that have sparked famine and food riots around the world.
Some $6.5bn was also pledged at a summit in Rome to halve global hunger by 2015.
The Commonwealth meeting was chaired by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Leaders of 10 other countries were present, including Museveni and the presidents of Tanzania and Sri Lanka.
The 11 vowed to "carry forward" their reform agenda and will report to full meeting of leaders from the bloc of mainly former British colonies in New York in September.
Brown repeated his criticism of the World Bank, saying it's "not fit for purpose, for the challenges of 2008 and beyond," and called for a new conference along the lines of the Bretton Woods conference of the 1940s which reshaped global institutions.
"I think we are agreed we need a major reform of international institutions," he said.