give us all some information. this is not something that can be seen every day. memo from department head to floor manager : the ceo will today deliver a short speech to make the sun disappear for two minutes in the form of an eclipse. this is something that cannot be seen every day, so staff will meet in the car park at ten or eleven. this will be safe, if you pay a moderate cost. memo from floor manager to supervisor : ten or eleven staff are to go to the car park, where the ceo will eclipse the sun for two minutes. this doesn't happen every day. it will be safe, and as usual it will cost you. memo from supervisor to staff : some staff will go to the car park today to see the ceo disappear. it is a pity this doesn't happen everyday.

with, a holistic long term approach. such an approach should have four key components. the first, and probably most important in the early stages of agricultural development, is to provide agricultural extension services which can reach the majority of smallholders throughout the countryside and provide advice on the adoption of good agricultural practises and the optimal crops to be grown, given the characteristics of their farms, as well as postharvest handling and storage. agricultural extension services must be supported by good agricultural research. both agricultural extension and agricultural research have the characteristics of public goods, because the dissemination of agricultural knowledge from one farmer to another means that social benefits exceed private benefits. hence, they should be subsidised through the government budget. the second component of a holistic agricultural strategy should be to strengthen land rights. as in many african countries, land tenure systems in uganda are often complex and the ownership or usufruct rights of farmers are often unclear and insecure. this deters farmers bis central bankers ’ speeches from making long term investments in land improvements and it is also an impediment to access to formal sector credit, because land with unclear ownership is not suitable for loan collateral. the third component is better rural infrastructure, especially rural feeder roads. the commercialisation of farming is impeded by the high costs of transporting farm inputs and outputs, from farm gate to and from the market, because of poor roads. high transport costs drive down farm gate prices of farm output and drive up input prices, which undermine the commercial viability of farming. more public investment in the construction and proper maintenance of rural feeder roads is essential to support the modernisation of smallholder agriculture. the fourth component is improved access to finance. as i noted earlier, this may not be the binding constraint for many smallholders, especially subsistence farmers. access to finance will only benefit those farmers who have the knowledge and capacity to use purchased farm inputs to raise their productivity in a manner which generates profits and which does not expose them to a potentially ruinous level of risk. this probably currently applies to only a minority of smallholders in the country, although the number of smallholders who could benefit from finance should rise substantially if the other constraints to agricultural modernisation are effectively tackled. in formulating policies for the development of agricultural finance best suited to support the modernisation of smallholder farming it is necessary to address two important questions : what specific type of financial services do smallholder farmers need? and what types of financial institutions are most