Recruitment of extension workers is underway in Uganda to increase the advisory workforce and inject fresh vitality into the country’s agricultural sector.

Agriculture is one of 15 areas on which President Yoweri Museveni handed down specific orders last month as he swore in his new Cabinet.

President Museveni issued the directives on June 23 at his first Cabinet meeting of his fifth term as he strives to deliver Uganda to a middle income status by 2020.

There are about 1,250 agricultural extension workers for a total population of 34.6 million people, at least 70 per cent of whom live directly off various forms of farming.

The Ministry of Agriculture aims to raise the number of extension workers to at least 4,000 over the next three years. By the end of this financial year, the target is to have recruited 3,000 people.

These workers are expected to serve farmers in groups compared with their predecessors, who attended to individual farmers. The shift in approach is attributed to population growth, officials say.

To that end, a disbursement of some Ush181 million ($53,219) and Ush25 million ($7350) respectively to each district and sub-county has already been planned to drive the exercise.

This is Ush88 million ($25,874) and Ush10 million ($2940) more than what was sent out during the just ended financial year because the ministry wants to wrap up the work on schedule.

“We need many extension workers on time,” said Consolata Acayo, an assistant commissioner at the Directorate of Agricultural Extension Services (DAES).  

If the recruitment goes according to plan, it will reduce the ratio of extension workers to farmers in Uganda from the present 1:5,000 to 1:1,000.

Impressive as this potential growth may seem, it remains far above the recommended ratio for Africa, which should be no more than 1:500. But the ministry is unfazed, saying it has begun well. In any case, it says it will not stop recruiting more workers once this initial target is met.

“Extension is the heart and soul of agriculture. Extension and research is what make agriculture. Without them there is no agriculture,” Ms Acayo added.

The recruitment scheme, now in its second year, is part of an elaborate National Agricultural Extension Policy, which DAES has been working on for at least a year now. Through it, the government intends to reform, streamline and direct all extension and advisory services in Uganda.

On June 28, the policy was resubmitted to the Cabinet for tabling following the last round of reviews in May. The ministry hopes it will be passed within a month’s time.

“There is a real commitment to implement the policy to the dot. We have engaged the chief administrative officers, the production officers and everyone along the value chain to ensure the policy is implemented and that it succeeds,” she noted.

But a loose coalition of NGOs that made inputs to the policy said that by December 2015, a considerable number of districts had not done any recruitment. This in large part owed to two ministerial circulars that offered different instructions on how the exercise was supposed to be carried out.

On one hand, the Ministry of Agriculture reportedly instructed local governments to recruit new people. On the other, the Ministry of Public Service instructed a reconsideration of personnel who initially had been part of the agriculture and production departments.