Eradicating extreme poverty among the rural poor in Uganda through poultry and cattle improvement programmes - A Review

Uganda is still struggling with chronic poverty and malnutrition especially among women and children despite the targeted efforts towards eradicating poverty by transforming subsistence agriculture to intensive or commercial agriculture that have been in place for the last 13 years. The aim of this paper was therefore to analyze the Republic of Uganda’s current strategy on eradication of extreme hunger and poverty, identify the major constraints and suggest possible strategic interventions using examples of poultry and cattle. The article has identified unemployment and persistent inflation as major constraints to modernization of agriculture in Uganda and has offered development of small holder poultry production, promotion of poultry crossbreeds, rehabilitation of community dip tanks and promotion of dairy crossbreeds as strategic intervention areas to alleviate extreme hunger and poverty in Uganda. In conclusion, the strategies used by the government of Uganda to fight poverty and hunger did not favour the rural poor but have supported the rich and thus failed to cause a notable impact. It is therefore recommended that adoption of the suggested intervention areas shall overcome the said bottlenecks and accelerate eradication of hunger and poverty. Key words: Livestock improvement, poverty eradication, rural farmers.