From journalist to passion fruit grower

Wasswa explains a point to other farmers while on a study tour of his farm. PHOTOS BY LOMINDA AFEDRARU

What you need to know:

Though Masaka and Kasese are major passion fruit producers, with appropriate technology and agronomic practices, the fruits grow well elsewhere. Lominda Afedraru paid a visited to John Bosco Wasswa’s passion fruit farm. Former journalist JB Wasswa was inspired by a newspaper article to venture into passion fruits

I am John Baptist Wasswa, commonly known as JB Wasswa, 47, a former journalist who is now into farming on our family farm. It is called Bongole Farm. The idea was not mine alone but my wife, Patricia Basaza Wasswa, and my twin sister, Jane Nakato, were involved.

As mentioned already, before agriculture, I was practising journalism. I was among the pioneer students of Mass Communication at Makerere University. When I completed the course in 1994, I started Envoys Africa, a publishing company. It did printing services for different companies and organisations.

Later, I started printing the East Africa Directory and this made me open offices in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

From 2002 to 2004, I had a contract with The [Daily] Monitor newspaper working as Supplements Editor. Also, technology had advanced and most people were now in position to access documents online. That is when I thought of closing the printing company and venturing into farming.

Initial investment
I practise mixed farming where I grow different types of banana; gonja, East African Highland banana (matooke) and sweet banana (sukari ndizi), tomatoes and passion fruit. We mainly concentrate on passion fruit because it has a potential for great business.

To start, we invested about Shs40m to purchase things like the poles, water tanks and ropes, and to invest in labour.

Right now, there are 10 permanent labourers who are paid on a daily basis, between Shs7,000 and Shs10,000 depending on nature of work. However, on busy days, we can hire up to 50 labourers.
I was inspired to grow passion fruit in 2011, when I read an article in Daily Nation. A farmer in Kenya had 150 vines of passion fruit and was earning KShs30,000 (about Shs900,000) per season.
By then, my family was growing cassava, banana and beans mostly as subsistence. But this article gave me a different perspective to farming.

I started passion fruit farming in 2012 on a 40-acre piece of land we bought 2009 and 2010 in Buwama, off Masaka road. We bought the land in phases costing between Shs3m and Shs6.5m per acre.
I started with 200,000 seedlings which I purchased from a farmer in Mukono district and planted on four acres. Over time, I have added more acres. By the end of the year, I would have planted passion fruit on more than 10 acres.

During the first harvest, we experienced a setback when the farm was hit by a blight infestation. We are recovering from that but we were able to harvest 400kg per week, which we sold between Shs1,500 and Shs3,000 per kg.

We are still selling at the same price range but during dry season the price of a kilo can go up to Shs5,000. There are times when we have had 1,000kg per week. At the moment, it is 400 kg per week.
To improve our bargaining power, we have formed a consortium of farmers in the same business. Our target is the export market.

During the preparatory stages for growing the fruit, I sought information from other passion fruit farmers before consulting scientists at National Agricultural Laboratories (NARL) Kawanda.

Challenges
The good thing about passion fruit is that once it has reached harvesting stage and there is no pest and disease infection, one can harvest all year round. This can go on for five to eight years before replanting the field with a different set of seedlings.

We mainly market the fruit to individual customers and traders in the markets within Kampala. But the supply is not able to fulfil the market demand. The actual market demand per week is two tonnes, which is 2,000 kg.

The challenge is that passion fruits require a lot of time dedicated to supervision, through the various stages right from the nursery to the growth stage, as well as constant spraying to prevent pests and diseases.

Some of the viral diseases are cucumber mosaic disease, which is not widespread. The most common is passion fruit woodiness disease; the symptoms include the leaves yellowing and shrivelling at their ends and eventually the whole plant follows suit.

Varieties
Other diseases are brown spot and collar rot, which mainly occurs in warm, humid areas.
Farmers are advised to manage it using the fungicide Ridomil (Dithane M45), which controls disease incidence.

Screening of local yellow and sweet calabash (hard-shelled) types for disease tolerance, has been done with some success in screen house trials by scientists at the National Agricultural Research Organisation (Naro).

The latter also discovered diseases like Passiflora poty, which is associated with aphid transmission.
The type of farming we are engaged in is not the kind our parents practised. While they farmed for subsistence, now if a farmer is to go commercial, he or she should use improved seedlings (pest and disease-free), and apply fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides for high yield.

The type we grow is the small purple type, commonly known as the Masaka type, which has less acid. The seedlings are sold at Shs400 per plant but the grafted ones are Shs1,500 or more.
The best include purple granadilla (locally known as Kasese, Masaka and Kenya varieties) and the highly resistant Kawanda hybrid, which was developed locally. The purple granadilla variety is popular for its powerful scent. While both varieties have ready market, the purple granadilla attract a higher price than Kawanda.

Other enterprises
Apart from passion fruit, we are into growing tomatoes, which is mainly in the dry season to avoid the oversupply in the market during the other seasons. We earn Shs50,000 to Shs200,000 per wooden crate depending on the customer. We are able to sell three to five crates weekly.

For matooke, a bunch is sold Shs5,000 to Shs10,000 and a cluster of gonja goes at Shs5 000. In a week, we sell about 20 bunches.

I intend to restructure the farm with a facility for training youth on agriculture and equip them with the best practices. This is because a number of them who are growing or have grown up in urban areas have hardly any idea about agriculture.

We shall expect schools to bring the children on the farm to learn different aspects of agriculture. Those who are planning to retire from public or private sector employment can also come and learn from here.

We also intend to set up a roadside market with restaurants and toilet facilities for travelers from DR Congo, Tanzania and within Uganda to stop over for these services. Five years from now, hopefully, we shall be able to have a fully-fledged learning farm with accommodation, a cold storage facility and recreation centre.

Some notes on planting

When planting, the spacing of 6ft by 6ft is good. And when preparing the nursery, you can either plant them in plastic bag filled with soil, which I think is quiet costly, or you simply plant direct in the soil. You can keep seedlings in the nursery bed for as long as you can. This can be done by pruning off the growing part.

In land preparation, it is advisable to dig holes at three metres apart. Make sure the pole for trellising the ropes is in between the holes. The hole should be a foot deep otherwise the seedlings may rot if it is deeper than the required depth.

It is advisable to use plastic ropes for trellising, which should be replaced over time because they wear out due to the weight of the fruits. Some of the agronomic practices include mulching, pruning where you select two healthy shoots and cut off all the others.

Pruning enhances productivity and cut off ends located at the top of the buds, which will produce new branches. This speeds up the development of the plant. Cut the branches with no fruits or which are damaged. It is also an added advantage if there are bees or bee hives in the vicinity to attract them to the plants for pollination.