Presentation by Peter Wamboga-Mugirya, SCIFODE, Uganda Delivered at the B4FA Media Dialogue Workshop, Kampala, Uganda - November 2012 www.b4fa.org

1. INITIAL DIALOGUE & TRAINING
WORKSHOP ON PLANTBREEDING, GENETICS &
BIOSCIENCES FOR FARMING IN
AFRICA (B4FA).
Speke Resort, Munyonyo
Oct. 31st to Nov. 3rd 2012

2. • SESSION 2: Practical Journalism & Science
What is Science Journalism:
• I want to start from the word go, with a
disclaimer: that my definition is neither the
official nor universal interpretation of science
journalism. It is mine; from my own point of
view, its my own experience that I want share.
• First of all, my practice of journalism now close
to 20 years—of this, about 7 years I have spent
reporting, commenting, editing, broadcasting
and interacting and now advocating for science
and technology issues.

3. • I was mentored and inspired into science
journalism by Mr. Patrick Luganda. Originally
when Patrick was writing farming news at
The New Vision it was a grey area that was
not prioritised by many media houses,
especially print journalism. There was very
little reporting, save for the Rural & Farm
programmes on then Radio Uganda.
• So my practical science journalism-journey,
begun with two media houses:

4. • First At Monitor FM radio [today called
KFM]. In the year 2000, I was appointed
Producer and Presenter of a 1-hour weekend
program called The Environment Show.
This was a live and interactive talkshow with
a panel of three other journalists and with
callers. It basically required good knowledge
of environmental issues.

5. • Now, I was head-hunted among workers at The
Monitor newspaper—where in 1996 I was
employed as a City Correspondent.
The head-hunt was for who could do the job of
Environment Talkshow Host, well. And the
criteria was basic knowledge of environment
issues – broad knowledge of policy, legal, socioeconomic and political-economy of the
environment. It was a time when encroachment
was spreading on wetlands, forests and lake
shores

6. • Originally as a radio journalist, then as a
member of the Environmental Journalists’
Association of Uganda (EJAU), I was found as
most suitable candidate to Host the show.
• This is because under EJAU, we had received
training and exposure to environmental
issues from NEMA, Makerere University
Institute of Environment and Natural
Resources, NARO, the Water, Wetlands,
Forestry, Fisheries and Wildlife Departments.

7. • Earlier while working in Government media, the
Radio Uganda and Uganda Television (UTV)—
both defunct—I was a reporter on agriculture,
wildlife and water issues. But in a Government
or State-run media particularly radio and TV,
we’d report mainly on who has said what, who
presided over what ceremony much of the time.
• It is about government personalities and their
activities, not so much about the issues and for
that matter getting in-depth knowledge of
scientific and technological matters was not
crucial.

8. • At The Monitor FM Radio—a private entity, the
Environment Show used to include wildlife,
water, agriculture, health and forestry issues. It
was an issue-based program—and gave me
early access to scientific bodies, to scientists,
especially to research work and a number of
training opportunities.
• 2. The second media where I did practical
science journalism is the then small newspaper
The Farmers Voice—now also defunct. It
belonged to the Uganda National Farmers’

9. • Association (UNFA) which later transformed
itself into Uganda National Farmers’
Federation (UNFFE). Patrick was editor-Inchief of The Farmers Voice and he headhunted me from Monitor FM radio to FV.
• He managed to persuade me and I joined
him. I was enrolled as Chief Reporter, and my
beat was mainly scientific research issues,
across the sectors/sub-sectors of agriculture,
environment and later on the science of
biotechnology.

10. • This small newspaper got rapid recognition by
various scientific bodies like NARO, UNAS
(Uganda National Academy of Sciences) and the
Uganda National Council for Science and
Technology (UNCST).
• They’d invite us to their activities and offered
training and Seeing-is-Believing opportunities.
• These organisations appreciated The Farmers’
Voice work—because it recognised and
prioritized S&T issues in its news and features
content. And it was viewed as an ally and
interested group or call it key stakeholder

11. • In between, I got training in Mass
Communication from Egypt in 2001 and besides
the training, Egypt as a country has prioritised
science in its policy and national programmes,
so much that this has enabled it produce food in
larger quantities compared to a well-endowed
country like Uganda. This gave me a good
understanding of how policy matters to science
• It is S&T that is used in irrigation and breeding
highly-productive maize and vegetables and
fruits seeds and the transformation of the
desert land to produce food. If you, on any
morning stood along any of the highways
leading into Cairo or other big cities like
Alexandria, Suez or Port Said, you’d count more
trucks loaded with

12. • fresh food, vegetables, flowers, livestock and
poultry products from the countryside, more
than you’d count on highways leading into
Kampala in Uganda or the three traditional East
African states combined.
• Ofcourse one of the reasons why Egypt has
more trucks is its sheer bigger population in its
cities than E.A has. Cairo is one of the most
densely populated capital cities in the world. It
is the largest and most populous city in Africa
and alone has approximately has 17-20 million
inhabitants—if you take into account the
metropolitan and greater Cairo areas where
there are cities within a city.

13. • A key factor why Egypt has a higher agroproduction, is there’s more S&T applied in
agriculture than we do here, and this leads to
Egypt and indeed other north African states’
higher productivity on the land.
• Egypt also invests heavily in S&T in education,
water, transport systems than what most
industry than most other SSA States do. Egypt
has systematically increases knowledge,
including in humanities and culture and uses
knowledge for new S&T innovations. Attention
is paid to R&D covering basic and applied
research, and experiments. For long many SSA
get training of its scientists on Egyptian

14. • scholarships.
• What I learnt while in Cairo is that prioritization
of S&T creates more jobs, higher wealth, better
quality of life—and generally leads to socioeconomic transformation.
• Now without sounding like digressing from the
topic, my presentation has been to illustrate
here is my practical science journalism journey I
have gone through, to give you the sense of how
it works out—in terms of where practical
journalism is done, the building of skills,
gathering knowledge and experience. Practical
journalism is not so much about writing and
broadcasting per se, but learning from other

15. • Others and sharing with them like we are
doing here. Being able to build the passion to
learn closely from scientists simple things like
how a plant benefits from e.g. fertilizers or
compost manure and natural soil fertility as a
combination, as opposed to just depending
on soil fertility which with time
recedes/depletes.
• Or how agricultural productivity and
production benefits from improved seeds like
hybrids or cross-breeds of poultry and
livestock, unlike pure landraces in crops and
bird and animal breeds

16. • In 2008 I was contacted by IFPRI—among
seven journalists around the world—to
comment on a report by American journalist,
Gregg Zackary Pascal on media coverage of
agriculture in the Third World. This was a
great piece of analysis of how the media has
knowingly or unknowingly betrayed its own
people and countries’ important source of
life and livelihoods
• N.B: CNN this morning has a report on how
bananas could be a crucial global food in the
midst of global warming.

17. • Lastly media coverage of biotechnology in
Uganda: it’s a new area of media attention
not research. Through a case-by-case interest
and individual/personal attention, the
Ugandan journalists are making an entry and
impact on their audiences—especially
newspapers as far coverage of biotech issues
are concerned. But it is on an on and off
scale, as issues and news from this area come
in limited drops, just when there’s exposure
at a research institute, an excursion to a field
tour or a workshop on any of the biotechbased projects in NARO.

18. • Yet, a lot of research has gone on and goes on:
Uganda has close to 10 CFTs—the highest in SSA
or even in the 3rd world going on concurrently
in the crops research alone.
• There are plans to introduce research on
mosquitoes by the UVRI, using biotechnology to
fight malaria – Uganda’s No. 1 killer disease.
Already there has been research for an antimalarial vaccine and interesting results have
been gotten by Med-Biotech labs using MSI
funding. Lots more stories are abound in the
breeding, genetics and soil research e.t.c.

19. Another opportunity that has enhanced my ability to
understand, appreciate and report science or does enhance
one’s ability to carry out practical science journalism is
training. In 2006, I received training from UNESCO, UNECA,
ASARECA and ISAAA along with other journalists on the
Coverage of Agricultural Biotechnology in Africa which took
place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. This was a very practical
experience that brought us face-to-face with scientists
applying biotechnology tools and techniques to transform
crops in Africa and it had a component of visiting the research
institutes just like B4FA has planned during this training.
Similar training has been provided by NARO institutes in
Uganda, most especially the NARL and NaCRRI where leading
scientists in the world in banana, roots/tubers and cereal crops
research have been resource persons at media training
workshops and have been our hosts to their Tissue culture and
genetic transformation labs.
• 5. Last but not least, one very important avenue in my
practical science journalism journey has been the Londonbased Science and Development Network (www.SciDev.Net )
where again it was Patrick who introduced me to the idea; to
apply to be their correspondent in Uganda.
•
4.

20. • With his recommendation, I begun with SciDev.Net
in 2004. My first story idea on an outbreak of
Anthrax in the QENP and hippos, buffaloes and
other grazing animals were dying. Herdsmen and
fishing communities were threatened. This idea was
approved and I undertook the assignment into the
park.
• Luckily I teamed up with the now Director, then
commissioner for Animal resources in MAAIF. He a
veterinarian, and a wildlife expert were heading an
Anthrax surveillance and control team. I got out a
powerful story and since then till about last year, I
regularly written for SciDev.Net—mainly on agroscience: policy, legislation for S&T; issues in

21. • crop-research, issue of genetic engineering and
developing appropriate technologies; funding or
investment for S&T training and education,
environmental issues; research to fight malaria
and efforts to improve nutrition and health have
been key issues.
• Today, I now mostly engage in consultancy work
broadly on science communication and
specifically on advocacy for legislation and
policy for S&T i.e. establishment of a Science
and Technology Ministry; Public Education &
Media training on S&T issues