From peasant farmer to wine processor

When I visited one of the stalls where the Alphine wine was being displayed by Mr John Ngamira, a farmer from Bushenyi District, I was impressed with what I heard. It was a success story of a former peasant who has now become a wine processor. This was during the field day organised by scientists from the National Crop Resources Research Institute in Namulonge recently. Ngamira with two young farmers narrated his long journey to being the managing director of Bushenyi Banana and Plantain Farmers’ Association (BUBAPFA), an institution established by a group of farmers with the aim of improving and conserving banana production among grass root farmers.

The association, established in October 1999 In Nkanga Village in Bushenyi District, was initiated by a development partner, International Network for the Improvement of Bananas and Plantain through farmer managed in-situ conservation and utilisation of bio diversity. Having started with less than 10 members, the association now boosts of 460 registered rural farmers. The farmers quickly organised themselves and identified scientists from the National Research Organisation to train them on sustainable management of the environment focusing on good management of the land used for growing bananas.

The farmers were also trained on how to process various products using matooke as the raw material plus marketing for banana and other farm products such as fruits. Ngamira quickly put the skills to practice by establishing a local wine manufacturing industry. He took advantage of the excess bananas produced by the farmers that lacked market and were getting rotten on farmers’ fields. Ngamira says that after completing his studies in Food Science in the late 90s, he failed to get employment and decided to go to his village in Bushenyi where he began growing bananas and rearing animals on small scale for purposes of food consumption.

Using his 14 hectare land which he inherited from his parents, Ngamira started growing matooke for commercial purposes since most farmers in the area where interested in this kind of business.“I started farming in 1996 when I completed my studies as an agricultural assistant. I began as a humble peasant farmer but gradually expanded it and began training other farmers in growing banana and rearing animals. Before expanding, my story was not the best but now my income has increased many more times than when I started,” Ngamira says. In 1999, there was a bumper harvest of matooke in the whole of Bushenyi District and farmers were facing problems of marketing their product and as such, bunches of banana were getting rotten from the fields.

This made him organise banana producers to come together and form this farmers association in a bid to overcome the problem of excess matooke yields. When he established this industry, farmers began supplying him with matooke (East African Highland Banana) and currently, all members of the association are shareholders in the industry. For one to be a member, he or she must be a banana farmer and as a member, one pays Shs25,000 annually as subscription fee. The association’s main focus is on women who are the majority members since they are actively involved in banana production.

Big achievement

Annually, Ngamira gets income worth Shs189m from the sale of Matooke, Alphine wine, livestock and coffee, which is also his farm product. He has managed to educate his four children with the first born at university doing Animal Husbandry.

Wine production

The wine is not bottled on a daily basis because it takes about six months for the raw matooke to ferment but about 500 bottles are produced every bottling season. After harvesting the mature bananas, they are weighed and put in a specialised room to ripen and this takes about four to seven days. Once the fingers are ripe, they are peeled and boiled, creating pulp from which juice is got. Ingredients such as sugar, yeast and other substances are added to the juice and it’s then put them in storage tanks where it takes six months to mature. When obtaining the final product, the processor siphons the juice at the top.

The wine is bottled in a 750ml bottle which costs Shs7,000. Currently, the wine has attracted market in Busheyi District but the farmers are advertising to get a bigger market so that they can fully enjoy the fruits of their sweat.