Economic Opportunity Mailing List Archive

["Martin Fowler" <<address removed>>]

Thoughts from the Moderator - Week 3Dear All,
 
Have we got the balance right?  We seem to be focussing our discussion so much 
on urban agriculture/the use of urban waste water for irrigation, etc (although 
far be it for me to underestimate its importance....to the livelihoods of urban 
dwellers; and I am enjoying reading the urban agriculture contributions).
 
A few figures from Uganda to support my position: 87 per cent of the population 
is rural.  96 per cent of the country's poor live in the countryside (an 
increase from the 1992 figure of 93 per cent) and 42% of the rural population 
lives under the absolute poverty line, compared with 12 per cent of urban 
dwellers.  The heads of 81 per cent of those households classified as poor are 
employed in the agricultural sector.   

By mid-2000 poverty had decreased to 59 per cent of its 1997 level in the urban 
areas, but to only 80 per cent of this level in the rural areas.

I don't believe Uganda is the only country in which a similar situation exists.

Given the poverty-reduction focus of DFID (and all participants in this 
e-forum, I hope/assume) should we not, in the short time that remains to us, 
try to focus our thoughts, etc., on aspects of agriculture/development in the 
rural areas?
 
Yours,
 
Martin Fowler (....an urban-based agricultural economist)
Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries,
Entebbe 
Uganda