President Yoweri Museveni, speaking during the World AIDS Day commemoration that was held at Bukungu Primary School, Bukungu Town Council, Buyende District, implored the people of Busoga to create wealth through commercial agriculture with “ekibaro”.
“From 1996, we talked about the four acres model. That time we advised you that if you have four acres, put one acre under coffee, in the second acre grow fruits, third acre for pasture for dairy farming, then in the fourth acre grow food crops. In the backyard do piggery and poultry and those near the swamps, do fish farming,” the President noted.
“Fish farming can give you more money than rice farming which you are doing now. These seven activities are the ones we recommended to you in the 1996 Manifesto of the NRM. Recently, the Busoga MPs led by Rt. Hon. Kadaga and Kyakulaga Bwino, learning from the good example from Kalagala, recommended that we add palm oil to the seven activities.”
President Museveni also warned the locals against misusing and underutilizing land.
“The problem is that you are now misusing and underutilizing the land. On the dry land, people are growing food but there’s no irrigation. In 1967, when I was going to University in Dares-Salaam, I used to pass via Madhvani and he had already started irrigating the sugarcane. Now you don’t see any irrigation anywhere. That means that dry land is underutilized,” he said.
“Then when you go into the wetlands, you plant rice. You get very little from rice. The analysis we have done in Limoto a farmer can get Shs80m from an acre accommodating fishponds. We should use the wetlands in a proper way.”
Indiscipline causing HIV
The World AIDS Day commemoration ran under the theme: “Accelerating Interventions to End HIV/AIDS by 2030”. The President explained that AIDS is really a problem caused by indiscipline.
The President further cautioned Ugandans against prostitution, saying that it’s the main cause of HIV/AIDS infections.
Furthermore, the President advised that when someone tests HIV positive, he/she should start taking drugs as prescribed by health practitioners so that they are able to stay alive and healthy.
The President also lauded the Ugandan researchers who are moving in the right direction to make a vaccine for HIV/AIDS.
“There are even our children who are threatening to treat AIDS completely by killing the virus. I’m going to support and fund them fully,” he said.
“As we are still struggling with the ARVs, our people have found a medicine where you take one injection every two months instead of taking tablets every day. I want to thank our scientists for really doing a good job.”
Dr. Musoba also revealed that overall, there has been a reduction in new HIV infections by 45 percent from 68,000 infections annually in 2017 to 38,000 by December 2023.
“15,000 of these were young people between the age of 15 to 24 years. We have 4700 children between the ages of 0-14. While we have the technology to stop babies from getting HIV, we still have quite a number that is still getting the virus.”
