On a hot December day in the Wakiso district in Uganda’s Central Region, 56-year-old Chinese agriculture expert Chen Taihua, gazing at the fish ponds at the Chinese-built agriculture center, was deep in thought of how lessons learnt back home can be implemented in rural Uganda to pull millions of people out of poverty.
As a breeze from the nearby Lake Victoria gave a cooling effect to the midday heat, Chen could not help but talk about the abundance of water and arable land that Uganda has.
While feeding the fish, Chen told Xinhua in a recent interview that in this abundance lays Uganda’s wealth, which if properly harnessed, can improve the livelihood of Ugandans.
Chen is treading a path that other Chinese experts have taken in supporting Uganda, where over 70 percent of the population derives its livelihood from agriculture, according to figures from the country’s Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries (MAAIF).
Chen, who is part of a team of Chinese agriculture experts that arrived in the country about two months ago, is part of the building bricks.
China, through a tripartite agreement with Uganda and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, sent a team of experts to the east African country to share experiences with small-holder farmers on how best to improve production using appropriate technologies. The cooperation is under the framework of the FAO-China South-South Program which is now in the third phase in Uganda.
The first and second phases, according to MAAIF, facilitated technology transfer and enabled improvements in the production and productivity of the crop, livestock, and fisheries sub-sectors.