President Yoweri Museveni has told Ugandans to abandon the thought of government interfering with soaring commodity prices and instead seize the times to engage in agriculture.

While delivering his State of the Nation Address on Tuesday, Museveni said the world presents opportunities to Uganda to export surplus agricultural products. He explained that Uganda produces 5 million tonnes of Maize and only consumes 2 million, 2.8 billion litres of milk but consumes 800 million liters and 8000 tonnes of sugar, consuming only 380,000.

Museveni says if Ugandans worked on producing quality products like Maize by removing aflatoxins and vaccination of cattle twice every year, they would have extensive market for produce.

Museveni says Uganda can take advantage of what is happening around the world, with some countries like India and Malaysia withholding exports of sugar and chicken respectively.

“Before the global destabilization by COVID-19 and the Ukraine crisis, Uganda was a country of surpluses crying out for market for sugar maize, chicken, eggs, milk, etc this global crisis actually presents Uganda with plenty of opportunities,” he said.

Museveni pointed out seven activities that Ugandans can engage in on small and extensive land to meet global demands.

He says persons operating on under four acres of land can focus on Coffee, frits,dairy products, fish farming, food for the homestead while those operating on larger than four acres could produce sugarcane, cotton, maize, tobbacco tea , bananas among others.

The President however reiterated that the government will not cut taxes on products with increasing prices because its tantamount to using cash for planned projects to consumption.

“Cutting taxes or subsidies, especially on imports, is suicidal because our people may buy carelessly and we end up draining our forex reserves. Moreover, cutting taxes or subsidizing, means taking away money from planned projects and putting it in consumption – fuel, bread, etc and that means, we stop, for instance a number of road projects.” he said

“Uganda is on the right path and has been for the last 36 years. We only need to be mindful of three points: the environment, corruption and chauvinism in business. You have seen what can happen to countries when they cannot produce their own food. There is no problem Uganda cannot solve, as I have stated above, as long as we are able to produce most or all of our food,” Museveni added

On fuel, the president stated that he is in talks with global actors like Russia and the US.

“I have contacted some of the actors. I am glad H.E. Biden is going to Saudi Arabia, to meet the Crown Prince to get OPEC to pump more petroleum out of the ground. That would definitely help. Also, the Chairperson of the AU,H.E. Mack Sall, met H.E. Putin in Sochi, Russia to ask him to assist in getting the wheat of Ukraine out of the Ports of Odessa and he has also talked to the Europeans to stop sanctioning wheat from Russia and fertilizers because Africa needs them. This is one of the correct ways,” Museveni said.

at the economy has now grown to US$ 45.7 billion, which is slightly above the population of the country.