The Development Research Up-take in Sub-Saharan Africa is committed to strengthening research uptake capacity and participation in the international development research system in 24 sub-Saharan universities across 12 countries. The goal is to improve accessibility and utilization of locally relevant research evidence to inform national and global dev't policy and practice. DRUSSA also works towards strengthening the capacity of policy makers in Uganda and Ghana to use research evidence.
Argentina, Brazil and lately Chile has proven that countries like Uganda with huge comparative advantage in the production of agricultural commodities with well-organized value chains can join the premier league of nations that are well respected and forces to reckon with. Sadly, most of the agricultural commodities, and particularly food staples produced in Uganda, are lost post-harvest due to lack of value added processing. For instance, only 26% of the total agricultural volume produced in the region is processed post-harvest on average as shown in Figure 1.
It has been estimated that the East African Community (EAC) region loses about 30% of cereals, 50% of roots and tubers, and 70% of fruits and vegetables post-harvest. Because of inadequate value added agro-processing, the region’s exports are mainly in raw form, which means that a high proportion of commodity value does not accrue to the region. Reversing this trend could improve the region’s food and nutrition security, and help create jobs for the millions of unemployed men, women and youth.
Studies have shown that low value addition in the EAC is caused by, inter alia, weak agricultural commodity value chain development and linkages; low investment in last mile infrastructure (roads, water, energy, telecommunication, etc.); gaps in requisite skills and technological know-how; limited scale economies in production and processing; inadequate financing; limited and unsustainable risk mitigation strategies; inadequate investments in farming, agribusiness development and development of agro-industries; and weak legal, regulatory and governance frameworks. Even where agro-industries exist, they are often faced with low capacity utilization arising principally from lack of adequate and timely supply of the right quality and quantity of raw materials due in part to low agricultural productivity, poor last mile infrastructure and scattered and small-scale production that increases collection, coordination and transaction costs.
Two commodities, namely, milk and beans are a common denominator in diets in Uganda across different income divides thus good candidates to consider in studying their value chains. Milk and beans prominently feature among the priority staple food commodities with potential for agro-processing in the EAC as shown in Matrix 1.
Refining, aggregation of crude oil, contract farming & Mini-Estate Processing Enterprise approach by medium-scale processors
Sadly, besides cooking at homes and the catering sector, there is no significant value addition to beans in Uganda; consumers also tire of monotonous flavour. Cans on the market are of poor quality. Uganda the leading bean producer in Africa imports canned beans from Italy, Brazil, and USA to mention but a few. Targeted capacity building in areas where Uganda has an edge would be a very good starting point given the resources and organization needed to develop functional value chains. As a result, an increasing number of people are abandoning or reducing their bean consumption despite its documented high nutrient content and health benefits. Prospects of marketing increased quantities of beans and new agro-processed bean products within the EAC markets requires carefully examining production and marketing constraints (increased farm productivity, producer incentives, and access to better markets). Equally important is examining prospects for increasing demand for beans and agro-processed products (understanding consumers’ tastes and preferences, increased consumer awareness of benefits of consuming beans and other value-added products, increasing consumer choices of value-added products, etc.) especially treatments such as de-hulling, soaking, milling, fermentation and germination or malting and cooking enhance the digestibility and nutritional value.
A case in a point is the powder milk production and market. Although the EAC offers a good market for powered milk, it suffices to note that as a region we have practically handed over the market to major players in New Zealand, Australia, Denmark, USA and Mid-Eastern countries that are dry desert sands because any investor seeking to establish powder milk processing capabilities at the local, regional and global level needs to pay attention three issues that are currently to our disadvantage, namely: 1) Capability to deliver at least 200,000 litres of milk per day. 2) Low energy bills since milk has to be stabilized, homogenized, concentrated, spray dried and bed dried. 3) Technological dependence. A reconditioned powder milk line costs in the region of € 1,700,000. A brand new one of any of the three brands of Relloy, Damro, or Carlisle costs between the € 3,500,000 and € 4,000,000. More often than not, Carlisle demands to do a detailed feasibility study themselves, before providing the quotation and the customer has to meet the cost of the study.
Succinctly studying milk and beans to specific targeted capacity building along respective value chain is a worthy while undertaking for DRUSSA fellowship and makes sense to vast majority of farmers and policy makers in Uganda.
I don't update this thing very often, but I'm on e-mail all the time, and the profound wisdom and sparkling wit just comes jetting out of me like one of those lava fountains in Iceland. So I'm going geothermal here.
....The most honest and useful advice I ever heard about dissertations came from Darren. I wrote to ask him what finishing was really like (this was when I was still a few months out). Tragically I've lost his original reply, but the gist was, "Eventually you will realize that you can't finish by treating the dissertation like a day job. It is a godforsaken monster that will continue to ruin your life until finally you've had enough and you just decide to kill it. After that, you may put in impossible hours and push yourself right to your limits, but you will finish. It's the only way I know to do it." [Darren, if you have the original thing you sent, please feel free to resend it or post it as a comment. UPDATE: Darren just posted it in a comment, below, and as I suspected it's much better than my paraphrase.]
That was certainly true in my case. The only thing that finally made me face finishing was my committee's insistence that I needed to get it done that semester. And even then I spent the first half of the spring of 2007 treating the diss. like a day job. It wasn't really until the final month and a half that I went into overdrive, literally staying up past my bedtime every night and gradually letting every other concern in my life slide. It sucked, bigtime. And after I filed I didn't look at the diss. at all for about three months. But I did get it done and filed.
It might be possible to just decide, "Okay, I'm going to finish my dissertation now," no matter where in the process you are, but I doubt it and I wouldn't recommend it even if it is possible. I think it's more like trying to climb Everest when there's a storm coming. There is some point up the side of the mountain when you are close enough to the summit to make a dash for it. There's no point in starting the dash until you're that close; otherwise you'll just exhaust yourself and possibly die of exposure. So for now just keep grinding away, a little here and a little there, until you are (a) sick to death of it and (b) close enough to make a run on the summit.
I read some books on writing when I was trying to write my diss--possibly more displacement activity--but none of them were worth a damn. The book that I wish I'd had then but only discovered recently is Steven Pressfield's The War of Art, which I cannot recommend highly enough. It's shelved in the Self-Help section at the bookstore, which strikes me as perverse. It's not really that. It's more like a personal philosophy on how to think about your work and all the things that keep you from getting it done....
I do recommend The War of Art, to everyone. Jarrod put me onto it. It's a short read, but pithy, and decidedly non-lame. I put it up there with Paul Graham's essays in terms of great writing about how to do useful stuff in the real world.
I just ordered a copy of Pressfield's book; thanks for recommending it! It's definitely been a struggle working on my book and trying to motivate myself to do some other projects, so hopefully it will have a positive impact on my writing.
Darren: Sadly, not really. As you might recall I went through a profound dark phase before killing the fucker. My only advice is something that is already familiar to you: you have to summon the power to WANT to kill it, and then GO GO GO, work all night to break its back, even if that means no sleep for a week. This is, literally, the >only< way I managed to finish it. Those few hours here and there just weren't enough. It might also help to plan some big celebration for when it's done: this is what we did, and it honestly did help. I had a whole day of pub-going, then a big dinner party, then a massive [... deleted ...]
It is a very nice and great post.But I think this is, literally, the >only< way I managed to finish it and those few hours here and there just weren't enough. I think it might also help to plan some big celebration for when it's done.
Young married male seeks giant undescribed dinosaur for long-term relationship. Incompleteness not a problem, pneumaticity a must. Send quarry photos or hand samples.