I remember when it was reported by the Guardian Weekly (27.01/17) that scientists had declared “2016 WAS THE HOTTEST YEAR ON RECORD.” As a farmer I am absolutely devastated by this trend. Since 2016, we have hardly made good harvests as we used to.

We are told to modernize and invest in irrigation systems, but where will the water come from? This year, 2022, scarcity of water for agriculture is real. Even our great water bodies – the Nile and Lake Victoria, for example, have had visible reductions in volumes of water. In my village, Kadoki, in Pallisa nearly all the spring wells and boreholes have tried out. People have to walk for miles to get a jerrycan of water.

For me, farmers being urged to address climate change by investing in irrigation can be likened to infertile manure. Where will the water come from for irrigation when there is drought? And when you irrigate and floods come will the crops survive being washed away; will they survive being submerged; will they not rot in the garden? 

Those with huge green-house-gas emissions are not reducing on their green-house-gas-emissions-causing-consumption at any convincing speed. This should be the most important issue on the minds of Ugandans, but behold it is not. We need an urgent decolonization of our minds so as not to repeat the mistakes of Europe, North America, China, etc., particularly in the definition of what is modern.