Coffee growing opened doors for Mukono farmer

He grows coffee and bananas and rears pigs and cows. He is the typical Ugandan farmer, who looks at farming as more than just an activity to earn money, it is a way of life.

My name is David Maswaswa. I am 78 years old. I stay at Budugala village, Goma Division in Mukono District, with my wife, some of my children and my grandchildren.

I have been a farmer since my childhood. When I was growing up, our parents trained us to become farmers. By then coffee and cotton were the only major cash crops that one would grow, yield good harvests and get money.

These two crops were a must-have in every homestead because that is where most of our parents got the money to educate us unlike these days where people wait for salary or other kind of pay.

If one did not have a coffee or cotton farm, such a person was looked at as poor even though he had land but doing nothing with it because the person who sold his coffee or cotton would eventually buy off that land.

Many demands, little money
To my parents, coffee was the major crop from which money that paid all our school fees came from till we finished our studies.

When I finished my studies, I got a formal job but I was not satisfied with the money it put in my pocket. The money was so little and yet I had many demands on my list. I worked for only three years and I quit.

This is because I sat down and thought hard: How long I would be in such a situation of working so hard and yet earning so little?

I decided to quit and take on the work I had grown up doing with my parents. I asked for a piece of land from my father, who gave it to me. I planted coffee seedlings like him, which I intercropped with bananas.

As I waited for the coffee, I grew maize and beans, which I would sell in the meantime. When coffee eventually matured and was ready to harvest, I decided to concentrate to it alone and the bananas.

With the money I earned in the first harvest, I bought more land to expand my plantation. I continued buying land until I was sure it was enough for me to make a big harvest.

By the time my responsibilities had also increased, I was sure of not suffering. That is why I have been able to educate all of my children until they all finished school. That is all through earnings from coffee. Altogether, I have 10 acres of coffee spread in different places in the village.

To avoid losses after harvest, do not keep them in a sack or anything that contains or attracts moisture. This can spoil the coffee beans because with time, they rot.

The best way to keep them is to spread them on the large surface. The way I do it is; I spread them on the floor in the house where I put them after drying them. One must make sure that they have been dried for at least a week under sunshine. The place where they are being kept must be dry and not easily accessible to water or any liquid.

Add value
To the farmers’ benefit too, I advise that one should only sell dry coffee beans to earn a substantial amount though one would make more profit if there is value addition.

One can add value to the coffee by removing husks and packaging it for processing. The husks can be sold differently and the coffee too. That is how I have managed to earn from it all my life.

In one harvest, I get between 50 and 70 bags coffee. Each bag has about 70kg and each kilogramme is sold at Shs2,000. There are two harvests in a year.

On average, I get about Shs1m per month throughout the year. That is why I made up my mind never to go back into office to work for someone moreover on pressure. Salary is not worth my energy. It is agriculture which my parents taught me that has made me successful.

I do not buy food because the bananas I have, are enough to feed my family. If I want to change the diet, I just sell off a few bunches of bananas and buy the food I want but which I do not grow myself.

Rearing pigs
Along with coffee, I rear pigs too. These are another quick way of getting money if one wants to get it quick through farming. Because coffee is usually stored and only sold during time of need, I decided to venture into pigs too.

I got the idea from Naads programme where we were taught how to rear pigs and get profits from them. We formed a group of 11 people and we were given two piglets, a male and female.

With time they grew, produced and multiplied, then they were distributed to every member of the group until we all got piglets.

When mine produced, I started selling them and I realised that I had not been wise enough to take on the project earlier. With pigs, only six months are enough for them to mature.

Mine are Large White, which grow quickly. Right now, pigs are on demand because people in the city who work in offices enjoy eating pork after work.

I prefer selling them when they are still young, usually at about four months, because keeping them can bring losses especially when attacked by swine flu. In addition, when they are growing, you may spend a lot of money looking after them and when you reach to sell them, you make losses. That is why I sell them when they are still young.

Cattle and milk
Another caution is, never allow a female pig to go beyond four births. After giving birth for the fourth time, sell it off because it will be old and it is usually bought cheaply.

Apart from the coffee, bananas and pigs, I also keep cattle. This is purely for milk production. I keep my coffee for the emergency needs like school fees, pigs for seasonal income, bananas for home consumption but milk is the one that sustains my daily income.

The cows give me an average of 40 litres of milk daily. I set aside about two litres for domestic consumption and the rest is sold. Each litre is at Shs1,000.

Success and challenges
Through all these ventures, I have managed to sustain my family, educated my children up to university and built three houses; for myself and rentals.

Like it is in any business, much as I have registered success through farming, there are challenges I have faced along the way. The biggest challenge I face is that of thieves. My coffee is usually stolen from the garden.

Apart from that, there are also pests and yet there are no pesticides for them. Coffee plants are also attacked by disease that just dries up the entire plant. Up to now, I have tried looking for a solution to it but I have not been successful in all places I have gone to seek for help.

Bananas are also attacked by banana wilt and some are stolen from the garden. For the pigs, there is a challenge of swine flu, which does not have treatment yet.

Once the pigs are attacked by the flu, count it a loss. The feeds like maize bran are also expensive.

If I still had the strength, I would be investing more in the processing machines for add value to my coffee and milk. But I am now old; I will leave that to my children though some are not into farming.

My advice to the fellow farmers is to always seek help from experts and those who have succeeded in the area where they want to succeed too.

To the young people out there, have a limit on how long you want to work for someone. The wealth you are looking for may be in farming.

editorial@ug.nationmedia.com