COVID-19 Pandemic and Hunger
The reason we fear COVID-19 is that we fear to die. However, some more situations and
conditions are causing death while we run away from COVID-19-related deaths.
Deaths and human sufferings have no preferred causes. If we have decided to
fear COVID-19-related death, we should also protect our population from other
causes of preventable deaths and anguish, including hunger and starvation.
In a few
more weeks to come, the level of frustration from parents failing to feed and
treat their children under this COVID-19 regime will climax. The national
COVID-19 Response teams should not only focus on the containment aspect of
COVID-19, but develop and implement plans to treat the sick, and ensure
undisrupted food production. Evidence shows that good and regular nutrition is
effective in fighting COVID-19 and all diseases.
The
patterns of government's food distribution are already showing signs of a significant
pending famine that may kill more than COVID-19. In Northern Uganda, parents of
children with nodding disease are starving. If you wish to understand the
impact of nurturing children with nodding disease, just go to Omoro district
and see for yourself.
But who
cares for these wretched souls? All they care about is the vulnerable urban poor
in Kampala and Wakiso!
Last
week, a friend reached out to me for help. His family has been confined to a
village where there are hardly any amenities left. The gentleman has a
motorbike, but only he can ride to the garden, 6km away. He cannot transport
his family members on his motorbike or mobilize villagers to come to support
his farming activities. He has run out of food and medicines for his aging
parents and children who may die anyway.
I read
somewhere that the government is transporting people from Busoga to Lamwo
district to teach locals there how to grow sugarcanes. If such people could assemble
in the field, why is it so difficult to ease the countryside to farm?
The UN Fund
for Agriculture (FAO) has sounded the alarm bell for global famine, predicting
severe food shortages. The COVID-19 containment measures have a profound impact
on the entire system of food production and must not be taken lightly.
Farmers
could still adapt physical distancing while farming, say for at least five
hours a day three times a week. Their movement to the farms could be
coordinated within a specific window of time, say between 5 am -11 am or a shorter shift of 4 – 8 pm so that farmers could harness the rains to grow food,
and the dry period for harvesting to make food available in the markets.
In
Uganda, the patterns of COVID-19 community spread is predicted with precision.
Of recent, most of the cases are resulting from our lackadaisical handling of
Truck drivers from source countries like Tanzania Kenya. Once this problem is
sorted out, the Farmers could be eased into activities.
Once we
contain truck drivers and people moving from country to country, we shall have
a more definitive control over community transmission COVID-19. Rwanda, for
instance, has embarked on mass testing of its citizens, owing to its small
population. We could adopt this method for farming communities. Farmers in
remote villages separated from contact with the outside world should be given
farming privileges to avert a severe food shortage.
Lastly,
let the Office of the Prime Minister scale the food distribution or
unconditional cash transfers to every part of Uganda. People are trapping rats
and mice for a meal because they have run out of food. The Coronavirus emerged
precisely because of these crazy consumption patterns that promote zoonosis.
Let's prevent eating snakes, cats, rats, and bats.
