Organic Food Improving Health Services in Uganda
Laura Dunstan and Kristen Lyons
In the 2012 President's address in Uganda, Yoweri Museveni provided a clear mandate for economic development strategies that would secure national stability and a position in globalised markets. With priorities set upon economic growth through foreign investment, he championed land and environmental management frameworks that could encourage the development of resource productivity. Yet despite the strong cheer-squad for export-led development, this model often circumvents local livelihood security for subsistence and rural communities, while at the same time exacerbating poverty, hunger and other social problems.
Beginning in 2005, a small group of Australians established a collaborative partnership with the Katuulo Organic Pineapple Cooperative, located in the Kyazanga Sub County, around 300 kms south-west of Kampala, the nation's capital. The purpose of this collaboration was to work alongside the organic pineapple cooperative to explore the ways in which an export-led organic agriculture for development agenda might also enable local communities to realise their hopes and aspirations related to sustainable community development.
In 2007 we affiliated with Friends of the Earth Australia under the auspices of 'Mukwano Australia' to continue this work. It was apparent early on, and despite the social and environmental claims associated with trade in organic produce from the global South, that smallholder farmers' lived realities often fell well short of global industry and development agency aspirations and claims. In response, Mukwano Australia sought to work with the Katuulo Organic Pineapple Cooperative to realise their goal of establishing a local health clinic; thereby enabling them to access vital public health and medical facilities within their local community.
By 2008, and together with Mukwano's support, the construction of a health centre was completed and a bright future of easily accessible health services for the 1500 households in the Katuulo parish looked to be closer than ever. Yet when we arrived for a visit in July 2012, Katuulo was not quite the picture of progress we had expected, and a meeting with community members who had been involved in the cooperative since the inception of the project didn't go as we had hoped.
Somewhere over the years between establishing the project and our most recent visit, the community had experienced difficulties with the buyers of their produce, and mutually beneficial trade links had disintegrated in an environment that favours large-scale industrial farming techniques and yield-based production. Along with an empty building and some collapsed infrastructure (including pit latrines, which we had undertaken fundraising for in 2010) we were met with community members who expressed both frustration and confusion about expectations related to our various roles as part of this collaboration.
These setbacks that unfolded, including unfulfilled expectations, are hardly uncommon in cross-cultural and grassroots development initiatives. Yet despite this setback, our meeting brought about a new life to the project; with the community embarking upon a new attempt to realise a much needed community health centre with previous lessons learnt.
In recent months, significant progress for the health centre has been made, including the negotiation of a deal with local health service providers of which the community is happy. Making the most of the current building, medical services have been extended from a nearby medical centre in the Kyazanga trading centre to the Katuulo community. Mirroring a successful centre in another community development project (the Suubi Centre – see www.hug.org.au/suubi), a medical team has taken on responsibility for securing medications and the supply of personnel. Meanwhile, the costs paid by the community members are being kept within locally appropriate means.
This marks a turnaround – in just seven months – from a stalled community development project to the current availability of services, medication, and three available beds. This situation will be monitored over the coming months to assess its ongoing progress. In order to support the stability of this positive movement more facilities are required including appropriate staff quarters, a storeroom, a kitchen, bathroom facilities and solar power. Reports from the medical staff say that these additions will allow them to push forward, and such uplifting community-based progress calls for support.
Mukwano Australia is now looking to support the Katuulo Organic Pineapple Cooperative with fundraising efforts to support these initiatives. Collaborative projects like 'Mukwano' push against the prioritisation of foreign investment and economic growth, exemplifying the importance of successful local development projects and the incorporation of community interests for sustainable futures. Please contact us (Kristen.Lyons@uq.edu.au) if you would like to support a community project enabling rural Ugandans to secure a healthy and self-sufficient future.
Laura Dunstan is a student, and Kristen Lyons is a senior lecturer, in the School of Social Science, University of Queensland.