Progressive Farming Turning Into Life-Saving Projects For Rural Communities In Northern Uganda

 

 

 

BY AMBROSE OKWANGA

LIRA: FRIDAY, DECEMBER 6/12/2024

Margret Akullu, 54 years old, is a widow and resident of Awe Ayela village in Otuke district who is practicing motorized irrigation farming.

Akullu said when her husband died in 2010 life became hard as they had nothing at their home and she could not afford essential goods as a single mother.

“When my husband died, I was left in dilemma to the extent that I slept in a grass thatched house without a door,” Akullu recounted.

She said her story turned round in 2011 when she attended a climate smart agriculture training and visited the model farm of Sasakawa Africa Association, an organization fighting climate change and nutrition issues in the two districts of Otuke and Kole.

“When I came back from the training, I started planting watermelon and fruits like oranges, avocado and lemon,” she added.

Akullu got inspired by the knowledge she got from the exposure and acquired irrigation facilities to assist her in kitchen gardening.

She harvests rain water that is stored for use in the irrigation project during dry season, a simple technique that is helping her to overcome the challenges of unfavourable weather.

 

Through her life skills initiatives, she has become the leader of widows in her parish, leading over 70 women who are vulnerable widows.

“The community trust me so much because they believe in my project and the widows are now involving themselves into life skills and climate smart agriculture.

Akullu is also a champion in fighting Malnutrition in her village through her model home initiatives of food supplements.

“There were increasing cases of malnutrition among infant babies in my community but at the moment there is significant improvement because of my porridge that am providing to over 30 children in my parish”.

 

 

How Akullu is benefiting from climate-smart farming.

Last season she produced one full lorry of watermelon and she got UGX.3.5 million out of its sale. She is getting an average of UGX.3 million from oranges and she is able to make an average of UGX.500,000 from making porridge, pan cake and daddy’s cake per week.

Akullu have used the money for building two permanent houses, bought motorcycle, and she paid five children to school with the last borne finishing her university degree this year.

However, she decries lack of good local market for her production, poor road network, and high cost of farm inputs among others which is derailing her from achieving a full production potential.

 

 

 

For Tonny Blair Acala, 46, a resident of Ogeo A, Apua Parish, Aromo sub county in Lira district, he ventured into agriculture in 2012 with tree planting initiative before coming up with the plan for exploring Irrigation system.

“I started by raising seedlings in a small nursery bed and I was dealing mostly in fruits and eucalyptus and I made sure that each household in my community get five seedlings for free because they had negative attitude towards my project and were not willing to buy my seedlings,” Acala Narrates.

Acala said he started expanding his nursery bed between the year 2014 to 2016 with the intention of getting money but water was a big challenge to him as he used to walk for 2kms to get water for his seedlings.

Acala says the only way he believes he can survive on is through farming.

“After completing my primary level, I did not join secondary education due to financial constrain but later I hoped for vocational training where I also stopped in junior one and started hustling at home” Acala added.

Tonny Blair Acala preparing his nursery bed. PHOTO BY AMBROSE OKWANGA

 

Acala took a step of faith by injecting UGX.12 million from supply of seedlings into buying solar system, and digging water for irrigating his garden and this is where he started realizing his dream of commercial farming and supporting his community members.

“I picked up the interest of irrigation system from a friend who started using irrigation some time back and he continuously encouraged me to take on the irrigation system because it’s the best practice to mitigate climate change,” he explained.

He started with one solar panel and later Lira district local government noticed his initiative and supported him with one more solar panel under the government project of Uganda Intergovernmental Fiscal Transfers (UGIFT) and this is helping him to irrigate more acres of land.

Acala said that he is able to practice three types of irrigation in his farm ie; Sprinkler irrigation which he mostly used on tomatoes and other vegetables, Drip Irrigation which he mostly uses on cabbage and onion and pump irrigation.

He stretched that through using these irrigation systems he is able to plant vegetables at any time of the season where he said in this coming dry-season he is going to plant more onion and tomatoes.

The impact of using irrigation system

Acala says he is able to make more money from a very small piece of land for example last season he planted cabbage in a space of 20 by 30 piece of land and he harvested four tippers of cabbages from which he got UGX.5million.

On average Acala is getting UGX.3million per season from different enterprises.

Acala used his money for building commercial house in the urban area and also residential house at his home. They have started a vocational training center dealing in training school dropout, he is paying his children in good schools within Lira city and he has acquired more parceal of land.

The water that he is using for the irrigation is saving the community by providing water for their domestic animals.

“When I started this project, I created a tap water in the well that I dug and now over 80 households from three villages of Ogengo A, Ajuri A, Amitikuc and Adagamone are using it free,” he said.

Tonny Blair Acala showing how drip irrigation is helping him is his cabbage garden. PHOTO BY AMBROSE OKWANGA.

 

Community involvement in this project

Acala has created a free space for the community to benchmark and learn how to go about irrigation farming which is encouraging the entire community to join in the fight against climate change.

“There are more than four people in this community that are practicing irrigation at a small scale using different methods and others have started with kitchen gardening and this is because they have been so close to me.”

Residents collecting water from the tap water connected by Tonny Blair Acala. PHOTO BY AMBROSE OKWANGA.

 

Challenges caused by climate change

Acala highlighted numerous challenges that him and other farmers are facing due to effects of climate change and the most notable ones are poor yield, poverty that could not allow farmers to afford the irrigation equipment, knowledge gap as they only relay mostly on the information from the radio, lack of market for the products and poor roads.

He urged government to inject more money in the Agricultural sector through budget allocation to support the farmers on the fight against climate change.

He also noted that there is need for more agricultural extension workers in different sub counties as one person cannot visit the farmers in the entire sub county and this is creating information gap.

Dnish Owani, the agricultural extension officer for Aromo sub county, Lira district says farmers are embracing smart Agriculture within Arom sub county and the entire Lira district much as climate change has caused significant effects on the farmers.

“We are training farmers on how to adapt to climate change such as early planting of crop, tree planting, irrigation among others although others are still not willing to embrace it due to economic status of their families”.

Owani stressed that Aromo sub county has become the leading green vegetable producer in Lira district because more farmers are enrolling in to irrigation farming.

However, he says the challenge is the affordability of equipment and farm inputs which are quite expensive for farmers.

Dorcas Alum, the senior Agricultural officer for Lira district, said farming has become gamble in Lira district because most farmers could not afford irrigation practice.

She added that through government program of micro scale Irrigation schemes, farmers are gradually embracing new approaches to farming but there are still challenges of lack of finance where farmers could not co-fund the 25℅

In 2020 the government of Uganda through the ministry of agriculture earmarked UGX.40 billion for the first phase of the micro scale irrigation program.