12

SPECIAL

SATURDAY VISION
May 28, 2016

Rwenzori suffers first pains

Early this month, Bundibugyo
district, in western Uganda
suffered landslides that
destroyed more than 200
homes and killed 15 people.
The region had already
suffered a series of calamities.
Rwenzori farmers, who pride
themselves in coffee and
cotton production, have been
hit hard, writes John Masaba

1,000
People forced to flee when
River Mubuku burst its
banks on April 14

60%

n 1972, William Bitambeki got on the

early morning bus from Kabale to visit a
friend in Kasese town, more than 200km
away. He hoped to return quickly, but the
friend persuaded him to stay one more
week. Soon, he had a job as a casual
labourer in town and that is how he ended up
staying in Kasese to date.
Forty four years later, the 63-year-old father
of six wants to sell everything and leave the
area. Now a farmer in Karusandara sub-county,
20km north of Kasese town, Bitambeki has lost
hope due to the areas unending disasters.
If anybody paid me today, Bitambeki said
of his three-acre piece of land he has since
bought, I would go.
Bitambeki grows coffee interspersed with
bananas on two acres of land. On the other
acre, he grows maize and beans. But a
combination of bad weather and floods has
made farming hell. From a whole acre of my
coffee plantation, I have not harvested even four
kilogrammes? he said, blaming the problem on
prolonged dry spells in Kasese.
Bitambeki says in the good old days, out of
each acre of the coffee plantation, he would
harvest at least 8,000kg on average every
season. Cash to care for his household of eight
always flowed in.
But on April 14, a major disaster struck.
Raging waters came gushing into his home and
he had to flee for life.
I have left everything to God, he said after
River Mubuku, one of the several rivers in
Kasese, burst its banks, wreaking havoc on
more than 1,000 people.
Xavier Masereka, another farmer, came into
fulltime farming after retiring in 2014 from
Kasese Catholic Diocese, following years of
service as a driver.
A father of 10, Masereka said his salary as a
driver was not enough. On an acre on KisingaKyaruba road in Kaberere village, 30km south
of Kasese town, he has been growing coffee and
maize. But, a prolonged dry spell crushed his
dream.
My garden looks as though somebody set it
on fire, he said. Although the rains are back
now, I do not expect much, he added.
Masereka told Saturday Vision that following
a dry spell, it takes a while before the coffee
recovers. The berries shrink and sometimes do
not form at all, he said.
Agriculture and particularly coffee growing
is the lifeblood of many families in Rwenzori
region, most of whom farm on smallholder
basis. But their lives are threatened by climate
change that has, over the years, warmed the
region, spawning disastrous consequences
for the area. Pests, diseases, erratic rains and
flooding are making agriculture a nightmare.
Zalot Kipura, the district co-ordinator, Kasese
District Farmers Association, a community
of coffee farmers with 1,400 members in
Kasese, says crops, especially coffee, are getting
stressed.
Coffee beans dry before they get ready,
sometimes you can see a green plant, but
without leaves, Kipura said. Crop failure rate
has increased from 40% two years ago to 60%,
he said, singling out flooding, the dry spell and

Coffee crop failure in

Kasese has gone up from
40% due to climate change

702, 029
Kaseses huge population
is putting pressure on the
environment

A bridge destroyed by River Nyamwamba. Meteorologists blame the problem on melting of glaciers on Rwenzori
pests like the berry borer as the leading causes.
The berry borer is a small black beetle-insect
that bores holes into coffee berries destroying
them.

n Endangered reserve land

Dr Laurence Jasogne, an agricultural system

analyst at the International Institute of Tropical
Agriculture in Uganda, told Saturday Vision
that as climate change takes shape, agriculturesuitable areas, especially for Arabica coffee, will
move up the slopes in Rwenzori.
Unfortunately for the Government, those
are protected areas, she said, adding that
human activities would have an adverse effect
on biodiversity and intricate ecosystem in the
Rwenzori.
Standing at a height of 5,109 metres, Mt.
Rwenzori is a UNESCO heritage site. It is

surrounded by the wild and intricate high

altitude vegetation and draped in swirling
mist. Like Mt. Kilimanjaro and Mt. Kenya,
Rwenzori is snowcapped with temperatures
in the surrounding areas at between 10-15C,
compared to temperatures of 30-36 C in low
lands, according to the Uganda Meteorological
Authority.
Masereka told Sunday Vision that the weather
in the mountains is less harsh and yields of
coffee there are better. He said many people
had fled the mountains because of the Allied
Democratic Forces (ADF) who used to operate
there. However, now that ADF have been
defeated, an exodus back has started as farmers
try to escape the harsh weather.

n Uganda Wildlife Authority

Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) fears they

could soon become caught up in the Rwenzori

crisis. UWA director of conservation, John
Makombo, said there is a big problem in regard
to the population in Kasese.
Kasese is the fifth highest populated district
in Uganda with a population of 702,029
people (after Arua) according to the National
Population and Housing Census of 2014.
Unlike other districts, Makombo said, there
is little land available for locals to farm and
this partly explains the ethnic conflicts that
have plagued the region between the pastorist
Basongora and the Bakonzo cultivators.
He said most of the land is either owned
by the Government or private entities such
as Kilembe Mines, Kasese Cobalt Company
Limited (KCCL), leaving little for locals.
What is remaining is a strip of land for
farmers to utilise, he said. Although no

Farming under threat

An Oxfam report released in April 2013 on the impact
of climate change in Uganda, predicted tough times for
farmers in the Rwenzori region, especially those in coffee
growing.
Coffee is responsible for 20% of the foreign exchange
earnings, according to the Uganda Coffee Development
Authority.
The study said most areas in the Rwenzori region, at
altitudes below 1,500m, will have to switch to alternative
crops. In Uganda, Arabica is grown in the highland areas
on the slopes of Mt. Elgon in the east, Mt. Rwenzori in
the southwestern and Mt. Muhabura in the northwestern
regions.
Other international bodies such as Fewsnet, a famine
early-warning systems NGO, have also predicted hard
times for cropping regions in the west and northwest
because of the climate change onslaught. Fewsnet said
this threatened future food production prospects in those
Meresi Kabugho, a Kasese coffee farmer, in her ruined garden regions.

FEATURE

SATURDAY VISION
May 14, 2016

of global warming
encroachment has been noticed yet on reserve
land, with more population pressure, I fear it
will be a matter of time.

POWER PLANT SUFFERS

But John Mufumba, the managing director

KCCL, said the huge population is having a
disastrous effect on the environment. KCCL
has a 9.9 megawatt hydropower plant along
river Mubuku.
The population density upstream is
increasing. They engage in agriculture and are
laying bare the rocks. Vegetation that helped
flow of water has been cleared. So instead of
being held up to eventually come down gently,
water runs down at great force with all sorts
of debris including rocks and soil, filling and
swelling rivers below, he said.
Mufumba said since 2013, there has been an
increase in silt, which has been chocking their
turbines and affecting power generation.
In April, May and October we have had
to constantly close down because of turbines
chocking on silt, he said, adding that the 9
megawatts per day the plant generates drops to
nearly half in those months.
Mufumba said turbines have to be replaced
every three years instead of six, raising the cost
of producing power.

Kasese residents ee the raging Nyamwamba River which burst its banks recently

LAKE GEORGE AT RISK

Mufumba added that beyond destabilising their

operations, the silting is threatening to wipe out
Lake George, which could increase the problem
of flooding.
Surveys show that, Lake George has an
average depth of 1.8 million (from a depth of
2.4 million 10 years ago). Unless something is
done, this lake will disappear, he said.
Covering a total surface area of 250 square
kilometres, George is a part of Africas great
lake system.
The lake is supplied by several inflows from
the extensive Mt.Rwenzori, including rivers
Nsonge, Rumi, and Mubuku.
If the lake is destroyed, experts say, it
would affect tourism and fishing. The fauna
of Lake George is dominated by different
animals, especially the fish such as the
cyclopoid copepod Thermocyclops hyalinus,
Tilapia nilotica as well as the Haplochromis
nigripinnis, according to a brief on http://www.
queenelizabethnationalpark.com. The site is
managed by Queen Elizabeth National Park.

EXPORTER SPEAKS OUT

Francis Baita is the director of Kiima Foods,

one of the exporters of Ugandas agricultural
products to Europe. Kiima exports mainly
maize, beans, cocoa and coffee. Baita bemoans
a drop in the quality from the region, which he
says is due to changing weather patterns.
We are emphasising wet processing, but
farmers are resisting it. This is because they
are losing on volumes due to shrinked coffee
beans, he said.
In wet processing, the fruit covering the
seeds/beans is removed before they are dried.
It is an internationally required process as it
ensures that only quality beans end up on the
market.
During the process, the wet bean is poured
in water and left there for a day. If the coffee
beans are shrinked, they will float on top of the
water, while the well-developed beans sink and
stay at the bottom of the water. Baita said the
floating beans are discarded, leaving only the
quality beans that fetch the coveted Grade A
coffee for export.
He said most of the coffee in Kasese is
stressed and it is becoming difficult get Grade A
coffee for export. Although the other coffee can
be exported as Grade B coffee, he said, it can
fetch only about half the price. Baitas company
exports 75 metric tonnes of coffee (mainly
Arabica) to Europe. However, he said, they have
struggled to raise the export quota required for

GRAPHIC BY DAN NSEREKO

Growing population stresses environment

Farming activities
leading to soil
erosion
Flooded river
Normal water level
Eroded soil and
stones at the
river base
export over the last three years.

BABY STEPS

Baita said to avoid getting out of business, they

have been using part of their income to support
them cope by giving pesticides and training
farmers on better agronomic practices such as
planting trees to provide shades for their crop

and mulching.
However, he said interventions do not
reach all their members. We do not have
enough funds, Baita said. We have contacted
organisations like USAID to help. They have
agreed to help us on the marketing aspect (of
farmers produce), but we want them to help us
with climate change, he said.

13

Food insecurity
on the increase
The number of food-insecure people
on the mountain is increasing, despite
a drop in the number of food-insecure
people globally, according to a report
released in December last year by the
United Nations Food and Agriculture
Organisation (FAO).
The number of food-insecure people
rose by 30% to 330 million, according
FAO.
FAO said high-altitude areas in the
tropics are highly populated (more
than the lowlands) because there is
more rainfall and most highlands are
fertile due volcanic soils.
According to the FAO survey, the
number of food-insecure people living
in mountainous regions in developing
countries grew to nearly 329 million
in 2012, up from 253 million in 2000
Mountain zones cover 22% of the
earths land surface and are home to
13% of the human population. FAO
says 90% of mountain population
live in developing countries and
are dependent on subsistence
agriculture. But they work on areas
with fragile ecosystems that are
easily affected by climate change.
The survey says one in three people
living in the mountainous area is
faced with hunger and malnutrition
compared to one in nine globally.
FAO attributes this to harsh climates
and inaccessible terrain, combined
with political and social marginality.
Almost 59 million people living
in mountainous area in Africa,
the report said, were identified as
vulnerable to food insecurity in 2000.
The number increased by 46% to
86 million in 2012, according to the
study. The majority of vulnerable
people are located in eastern Africa,
the report said.
The report said in areas where
family farming and smallholder
agriculture, forestry and animal
husbandry are the prevailing,
farming systems, investments
and technical support are needed
to diversify and boost mountain
production systems through, for
example, integrating indigenous
knowledge and traditions with
modern techniques.

What Uganda has done on climate change

In 2007, Uganda joined the rest
of the World in the fight against
global warming. Consequently, a
Climate Change Unit was created
in 2008 by the Government.
It was to strengthen Ugandas
implementation of the United
Nations Framework Convention
on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
and its Kyoto Protocol (KP)
policies.
Among others, Uganda
committed itself to integrate
climate change in the countrys
development programme at all
levels. The biggest emphasis was
on poor communities, which are
the most at-risk group to the
effects of climate change. Also
targeted were women as they
form the more than quarter of
the labour force in agriculture. In

total, Uganda committed $39.8m

in funding towards climate
change.
However, Uganda has not
walked the talk. Dr Edidah
Ampaire, a researcher and expert
on climate change at International
Institute of Tropical Agriculture,
told Saturday Vision that there
are a lot of good policies, but little
action on ground.
She said what the country needs
to do is harmonise its approach
and so that all government
policies on climate change
have a specific duty. They are
everywhere but nowhere, she
said. There are no environment
committees at sub-counties, yet
this is provided for in the National
Adaptation Programmes of Action
framework.

She added that women who

comprise more than three
quarters of the workforce in
agriculture in Uganda and
whose activities have a profound
effect on the environment lack
information on climate change.
Dr Gorreti Kitutu, a former
environment systems specialist
at the National Environment
Management Authority told
Saturday Vision that politics is
to blame. She says an incident
during the presidential campaigns
locals were urged by presidential
candidate Kizza Besigye that
if he were elected, all people
forced out of Mt. Elgon National
Park forest would be allowed
back. We need a mult-sectoral
approach to this problem. For
example, education ministry

needs to embed climate change

in the syllabus. On the other
hand, the energy ministry should
begin drumming the idea of clean
energy, she said.
Kitutu said Uganda cannot
afford to drag its feet because
consequences could turn out to
be costly for the economy as not
only agriculture will be affected,
but also the general health of the
population.
Agriculture is suffering new
pests because of global warming.
Malaria is also becoming more
prevalent. All these require agent
attention, she said.
Efforts to speak to Chebet
Maikut, the head of Climate
Change Unit, were futile by press
time, he had not responded to
questions sent to him by email.

This story was done with support from African Centre for Media Excellence